Terms & Conditions

We were supposed to fly to Europe (Italy via Zurich then on to Slovenia and Croatia) on Monday but that morning, when I tried to check in, I learned that you cannot fly to those places with a passport that will expire within three, sometimes six, months of your travel dates.

Mine was expiring a month after our return.

I mean, can you blame them? With the orange-faced geezer tee-d up to “run” the country again, I would imagine plenty of people are heading off on ‘vacation,’ with a potentially more permanent agenda.

It was an interesting little piece of information that arose at the 11th hour, and the Swiss Air person I spoke with on the phone would not tell me if I would be allowed to travel or not, so we headed to Boston to see if an actual human might treat us with a little tenderness. It was the first time in my pastor life I wished I had a clerical collar.

On the drive I checked in with friends I figured would know more and it turned out that this was, indeed, “a thing.” My more international pals told me stories of their own nightmares related to the three-month rule, and when things went from hopeful to doubtful we made a Plan B.

The passport rule wasn’t the only roadblock we encountered. It seemed every corner we turned there was a snarling dog warning us to back away: I could try to get an appointment at the Boston passport office, but it was full on Tuesday and closed on Wednesday. You can’t make an appointment for an expedited passport without a scheduled flight … do we pay the massive difference in ticket price and hope to get an opening on Tuesday … ?

We chugged on, still planning to speak to a representative at the airport, but an accident near the terminal slowed us to a stop.

In the end, sitting in motionless traffic looking down at the parking lot we were trying to reach, we made a fork-in-the-road decision to head south to a different summer vacation destination: Martha’s Vineyard. Please don’t feel sorry for us, we are spending the dog days of summer in a quiet sanctuary by the sea, loaned to us by a very kind friend.

In retrospect, and everyone we shared our story with said this, it felt like the Universe didn’t want us to be in Europe. Passport rules, passport office closed, traffic accident all felt like the Get Out scene from Amityville Horror. It was not subtle; it would have been foolish to push any harder with our agenda.

In the days since I’ve thought a lot about the roads not taken in life. About the terms and conditions of this world vs. the terms and conditions of our soul contract. About all the choices we make in life and how they do or don’t take us to where we are supposed to go.

Are the signs there all along, every step of the way, and we’re too dopey to know? Too distracted to get what’s going on?

I thought of the time I was supposed to go to the beach with my friend and it was raining so we went to Vermont and I met the person who became my husband and eventually Sam and Nate came into the world.

I thought of the college choice I made and all the people I met there. And of my other options and what they might have been like.

I thought of the night I went to a restaurant with my brother and met my second husband who brought Coco into the world with me.

Would those souls have found me if I had mated with other men? Or would they be living other lives elsewhere with other parents?

I thought of all the vocational yeses I’ve chosen, many of which have taken me out of my comfort zone. It occurred to me that most of my life has been about trying things that make me a little uncomfortable. I see now how much I like a spiritual challenge.

But I’ve never played an instrument and I’m not athletically competitive. I like beautiful objects but don’t get attached to things. I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable living in a building and I know that sounds really weird, but the sounds they make and the leftover energy from other people and sometimes the crappy, unnatural building materials make me feel uneasy.

I didn’t like being married and I didn’t like being pregnant or staying home with small children, which were all surprises to me.

What on earth goes on in a life that makes us choose some things and not others?

The messages from the Universe seemed quite clear on Monday when we were supposed to fly, but we forged ahead with our human agenda anyway: we paid for this trip and we made all the plans, goddamnit, we’re going!

And yet, most of the people who run the places where we were going to stay were understanding and accommodating, and we have spent the last several days on one of my favorite (Coco’s too) places on Earth, where the light is exquisite and the air smells like the sea and everything is endlessly inspiring. We are having a great time.

This experience was a study in change and on-the-fly adaptation. The pivot, as my friend Gail, called it. It’s everything in life. Why grumble, kick rocks or blame anyone, especially in a world lacking entirely in customer service and accountability when there is always another way?

Were we meant to come to Martha’s Vineyard because something magical is going to happen here? Or were we spared something tragic in Europe?

Did I pass the pivot test or fail the tenacity quiz? I wonder if I’ll ever know.

Down in North Carolina this week Sam and Mišel have faced a series of unfortunate events of their own. Their arrival in their new home brought all kinds of surprises from lack of good soundproofing to cockroaches to furniture vendors cancelling their orders and not informing them.

Europe will be there, presumably, when we try to make another run at it, maybe next summer when Mišel isn’t busy killing cockroaches and overwhelmed preparing for grad school and can guide us around her homeland, Slovenia. Maybe one day we’ll look back and see that we were supposed to be here and not there this week. Sometimes I think we get gentle nudges from Universal forces, other times it’s an absolute drop-kick. All of it, I feel certain, is designed to get us to stop fighting the current and get in the freaking river and let it take us where we’re supposed to go.

Humans love their rules: the expiration date on your passport isn’t actually an expiration date—we picked a new one (without telling you); you can make this reservation but you can’t modify it; we can’t deliver the furniture if the address on the order doesn’t match the delivery address (so we cancelled, without telling you), but there are larger Cosmic rules always at play around us and I think if we keep turning in that direction then everything will eventually be fine. Better than fine. I believe this to be True.

xomo