A chance encounter

I don’t usually break out my laptop on flights. After many years of being in grad school, the opportunity to read and relax on a flight is a luxury I do not often pass up. But, after the experience I just had, I had no choice but to break out the computer. There is too much swirling in my head, and I need to write it down.

As I type, I am sitting on the aisle seat in a mostly full flight, on my way home from Thanksgiving with my family. The window and middle seat are filled with two young women, both perhaps in their 20s, and they instantly bonded over a similar life philosophy. One has the “om” symbol on her backpack, prompted the other to ask about it, and to show her tattoo, which is of a similar symbol etched onto the inside of her right wrist.

She said that the image depicts the god who raises the sun every day. She got the tattoo after going through a severe depression, and the image reminds her that every day, no matter what, the sun will rise again. The two of them bonded quickly, and now their pleasant chatter is actually quite nice to listen to as I work to organize my thoughts.

I love to travel, and tonight in particular, for no real specific reason, I was reflecting as to why as I sat on the shuttle bus from the rental car drop off facility to the departure terminal. I was thinking about how, no matter what, regardless of the steps I take to protect my belongings from pickpockets, regardless of the way, as a single woman traveling alone, I must always be vigilant, I know that, mostly, people are good. The man on the shuttle who made room so I could sit down on the ride to the terminal showed me this. The nice lady in the metro in Paris who saw my frustration as I struggled with the turnstiles in an unfamiliar country reminds me of this. The sweet older lady in Japan who ran outside in the rain to thrust her umbrella at me as I walked down the street, caught in an unexpected downpour, expecting nothing in return, not even the return of her umbrella, reminded me of this, too.

Mostly, people are good.

Mostly, people will try to help you when they can.

Tonight, I got to the airport a bit earlier than I normally would, due to it being the Sunday of a holiday weekend, and having to return a rental car. I ended up not even needing the extra time, but I was happy to have it nonetheless.

I made it through security quickly, and stood at a bench just on the inside of the terminal, checking my phone. I had a number of text messages from friends that I wanted to return. I was in no hurry, so after I shoved my jacket into my duffel bag, I stood there, tap-tap-tapping away on my phone.

An older man with gray hair and a beard, who looked not unlike Robin Williams in Good Will Hunting, stood on the other side of the row of chairs. “You text awfully fast with just one finger!” he said. This is not the first time people have marveled at my texting skills. “Usually, people text with their two thumbs,” he said. I told him that I couldn’t text that way, I make too many mistakes. One finger worked better.

“There seems to be a divide,” he said. “People under the age of 35 tend to use one finger, whereas people older than that tend to use their thumbs. You are clearly under the age of 35, so you must be the anomaly.”

“Ah, but I am not under 35,” I said. “But, thank you for the compliment!” I was actually pleased by this. I haven’t been mistaken for younger than my age in some time.

I’m not sure how, but we kept chatting. I wish I could remember how we ended up talking about the recent presidential election. Or how I ended up looking at pictures of his sister-in-law’s puppy on his ipad. Or how I learned that when law suits have punitive damages awarded in the billions of dollars, that may actually be not only unreasonable but also unconstitutional.

“My name is Hank,” he said, hand outstretched. What the hell. “I’m Marie,” I told him.

“What time is your flight, Marie? Do you want to grab something to eat?”

I told him that I had actually had dinner with my mom just before heading to the airport, but that I would be happy to keep him company while he ate. My flight didn’t start boarding for an hour and a half. Why not?

Hank is a partner in a law firm in Boston, and has been for some time. He represents big chemical companies – the Exxon Valdeez? He was involved in that case.

Once a year he teaches appellate law at Harvard, his law school alma mater. One of his students back in the day was Ted Cruz. Hank knew even then that Cruz was whip smart and unkind.

He also taught Nelson’s Mandela’s daughter, whom he admired very much. He said she was quite poised, intelligent, well spoken, and above all, kind. He said that her father would be very proud of what she does for a living now, working to bring corporate businesses to South Africa.

I learned a bit about of some of the cases Hank has worked on over the years. I am embarrassed to say just how naïve I have been about a lot of what goes on in our legal system. One young boy was huffing in the garage, dropped the can near the gas hot water heater, blew up the garage, and most of himself. The family was awarded millions from the gas company.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “The kid was doing a stupid kid thing and yet his family got millions of dollars from a company that wasn’t even at fault?”

“Happens all the time,” Hank said.

Another company hired an unlicensed contractor to lay gas line in their store in a shopping center. The work was shoddy. The store exploded. Hank even showed me video of the explosion, caught on camera by the fire truck that had responded to the scene. The gas company was sued, despite not doing a damn thing wrong.

“I always thought that many lawsuits were honest disagreements, or accusations of genuine wrong doing and the truth needed to come out,” I said. “I had no idea so much of our legal system is tied up with plain old fraud.”

“Oh, yes,” Hank said. Part of his job, with his physics background, is solving the puzzle of each case, to determine the science, and whether or not what was accused of happening was even physically possible.

In his spare time, Hank is a political activist with the Democratic Party. We talked about the recent election. He was not the slightest bit surprised at the result.

“What did Hillary in?” I asked. For one thing, he explained, she should have gotten out ahead of the emails. She should have handed over the whole darn thing two years ago, and buried the news story at Christmas 2014. Just gotten it done. She didn’t get ahead of it when she should have, and it kept coming back to bite her.

On top of that, the country is still very white, and there are many people who are not ready for marriage equality or gay rights. While Obama coming out in favor of marriage equality may have been morally correct, Hank surmised, the result is that is so much of America wasn’t ready for it, and they’re retaliating now, with their vote.

After all, Hank said, “’Make America Great Again,’ really means ‘Make America White Again,’” and that mentality is shared with people who are not comfortable with gay rights.

I asked what he thinks will happen in the first few years of the election. He said the biggest question right now is who will be Secretary of State. The prospect of who that could be scares him. He is as scared as I am about what will happen next to our economy. Said that he believes 100,000 Muslims will be deported.

“The deportation will really happen?” I asked?

Hank nodded his head somberly.

He also believes that Trump doesn’t have the first clue what he’s doing. Early on in the election process, someone said to him that it will cost about $75million to run for president, to which Trump responded, “So, about the cost of a yacht?”

In other words, no big deal. Trump just bought himself a yacht, and a job that puts him in way over his head.

In the meantime, as a passion project, Hank is on the team for the ACLU that will prosecute Trump. When the ACLU says they are watching him, they mean it. People like Hank, who actually know something about constitutional law, are ready.

Hank also shared a fun fact about politics and law making: when politicians want to block policy, they simply write legislation that violates the law. For example, he knows someone who was in a position to have to write legislation to bring back the death penalty in her state. So she wrote it, and made sure what she wrote was unconstitutional so it wouldn’t pass. In other words, Trump has no idea what is in store for him. There are so many brilliant people at the ready to take him on in ways he hasn’t even seen coming.

As we were talking, we were sitting in an airport restaurant. It was a terrible restaurant, with bad service and mediocre food. But it was better than standing in line at McDonald’s, as Hank put it. He ate a seafood salad and drank club soda. I drank a glass of pinot noir. He told me about the up-and-comers in Massachusetts democratic politics whom he really sees taking the party by storm for the next election. He said that the end of an election is a point where there isn’t much left to be done.

“What’s going to happen is already in the cards at that point,” I said. Hank nodded.

But getting ready for the next round is where you can really have some fun and make an impact, he said. He has an event coming up that he thinks I would enjoy. I think I may have just been recruited to get political. I am okay with this.

After Hank paid the check, he walked me to my gate. He gave me his card, and I shared my email address. We shook hands and wished each other well.

I got in line for my flight, and boarded the plane, finding one of the few aisle seats left, way in the back. My two seatmates turned out to be the aforementioned kindred spirits. They made me smile.

And as the plane took off, and I took out my laptop to write all of this down, I reminded myself why travel is so good for my soul.