let the horror become background noise

fresh off a flight from montreal to LA, i drove to the desert. what was supposed to be a two-hour drive turned into a four-hour traffic extravaganza, the final flourish on my travel day from hell. first-world problems, but problems nonetheless.

my flight had been delayed an hour due to a maintenance issue, which they announced promptly after teasing us with an early boarding call. crudely put, my airline blueballed me. thankfully, my saint of a mother fed me a silver lining via text:

“better that they are extra safe!! priceless cargo <3<3<3”

the priceless cargo being me, of course.

eventually, i did board, for real this time, an hour later than planned.

i always tell myself i’m going to be productive on flights, and this time, it really happened!

sike.

i watched two movies: “the drama,” starring zendaya and robert pattinson, followed by “dune,” also starring zendaya. good for her.

but zendaya isn’t who i want to talk about. i want to talk about the man sitting next to me.

he was fine. not smelly, overly talkative, or slightly ill and doing a poor job of concealing it, causing me to anxiously spiral over whatever airborne illness i had now certainly contracted. no, none of that.

he did something unprecedented.

he put on lee cronin’s “the mummy.” the horror-est of horror films! or so i can only assume, because i don’t watch those kinds of movies. call me boring, but i’ve never understood the appeal of scaring yourself on purpose.

now, you’re probably wondering: what’s so bad about watching a horror movie?

what’s so bad isn’t that he watched it. it’s that he barely did.

because he was ASLEEP.

headphones on, peacefully napping while possessed children climbed walls, murders ensued, and limbs were ripped from bodies. and and and. he was getting the full ASMR experience. i have to assume horror movies are to this man what ASMR videos are to me.

meanwhile, as i tried to enjoy my quirky little A24 film, my eyes would innocently wander over to his screen and i’d be freshly traumatized. then i’d look at him and find him completely at peace, eyes fluttering in REM while carnage unfolded six inches from his face.

i was equally fascinated and horrified.

and you know what? maybe i ought to live a little. maybe i’m missing out on a revolutionary form of stress management. worried about your life? watch a bunch of possessed children murder people and you’ll probably just feel grateful to be alive.

i’m sure the plot is more sophisticated than that, but i don’t want to know. re: aforementioned distaste for unnecessary fear. still, i can see how it might put things into perspective for you.

we landed more than an hour behind schedule. i checked waze and saw that the drive to joshua tree was now three hours instead of the original two it would have been had we landed on time.

“no problem! i’m staying positive,” i told myself.

i marched to baggage claim with complete faith that my suitcases would be the first to emerge. slowly, bitterness crept in as i watched the carousel go around and around to no avail. two flights’ worth of luggage passed before me, mocking me like, “bitch, you thought. LMAO.”

then, just as i was about to surrender to the terrible mood brewing inside me, there they were: my mother’s priceless cargo’s precious cargo.

okay. next step: pick up the rental car.

i don’t know if you’ve ever tried to board an overcrowded shuttle with two heavy suitcases, but it’s a bit like an escape-room challenge where the room is thirty degrees and everyone hates you. it really makes you reconsider that third pair of heels and fourth pair of pants.

this was my second attempt, by the way. i had already watched one hertz shuttle calmly drive away as i rushed toward it, entirely unmoved by my suffering.

once safely aboard the next one, i almost let out a sigh of relief, until the engine started and launched me forward. thankfully, my fifty-pound suitcase was there to catch me.

i finally felt close to the finish line when i overheard a dutch man asking someone if he was on the correct shuttle—the one going to dollar thrifty.

cue the colour draining from my face.

i was immediately convinced i had boarded the wrong bus.

following the dutch man’s lead, i asked a friendly-looking couple whether the shuttle was going to hertz too. the man seemed confused. after the third time he asked me to repeat myself, i realized he didn’t speak english. i said never mind, thanked him, and moved on to the man standing beside me, who turned out to be friends with the original dutch guy and also could not speak english.

remind me to learn a third language. french is not particularly useful in california.

finally, i decided to use my brain and search the bus for signs of hertz. i found nothing. with no better options, i chose to trust the impulse that had made me leap onto this shuttle for fear of being left behind yet again.

fifteen minutes later, we stopped. i stepped off praying, and thank god: there it was. among the dollar thrifty signs, a giant yellow beacon reading “HERTZ.”

i had made it to the finish line.

except, of course, i hadn’t.

the line to pick up my car was unreal. un. fucking. real. i’ll spare you the details, but i was nearly brought to tears. frustration had officially won. i had been awake since four in the morning. all i wanted was a shower and some real food.

forty-five minutes later, it was finally time to retrieve my car from the garage! only i had been given the wrong parking spot number.

i discovered this after asking an employee for help. with pity in his eyes, he informed me that my vehicle was on the complete opposite side of the garage.

not 2943, but 1625.

thankfully, he went to get it and drove it back to where i stood. i’m sure he could see i was in dire need of a small act of kindness.

finally, i was on the road.

but i was also in traffic.

the estimated drive jumped from three hours to four. i spent far too long moving between five and twenty miles per hour. my ass was numb. my glute gains were dissipating by the second. i was parched but refused to drink water because stopping to pee would only prolong the ordeal.

i called my brother, then my aunt, then my mom, and told them the whole story. i made them laugh, and that made me feel better.

transmuting pain into pleasure never fails to make me feel better. a shitty day usually makes for a good story. that’s probably the only good thing about them.

but there was more to this particularly shitty day.

eventually, the traffic cleared and i found myself on the open road. only an hour remained before i would reach reset hotel and officially begin my forty-eight-hour retreat.

i rolled down the windows, turned on some of my favourite music, and realized that everything was completely fine.

everything was more than fine, actually.

had it been a difficult day? sure. but if none of it had happened, i wouldn’t have appreciated that final hour the way i did.

i listened to the music, occasionally turning it down until all i could hear was the wind and the hum of the engine. there was no traffic around me. no honking.

the wind blew through my hair, and suddenly i remembered: i’m in california.

when i woke up that morning, i had been home. now i wasn’t.

my younger self came to mind. she wouldn’t believe what i was doing now.

or maybe she would. maybe that’s exactly why i’m doing it.

if my flight hadn’t been delayed, i wouldn’t have seen the sun peeking over the mountains, washing everything in golden light. i wouldn’t have been quite so excited to reach the hotel, ask the woman at the front desk her name, and linger to chat with her. i wouldn’t have sunk as deeply into the hot shower, savoured every bite of dinner, or stepped outside that night and stared in disbelief at how clearly i could see the stars.

everything was more than fine.

and i laughed. i laughed and laughed, because what a profoundly human experience i had just survived: the inconveniences, the indignities, the spiralling, the kindness, the sudden beauty of it all.

everything feels so serious when we’re staring directly at it.

but sometimes, you just have to let the horror become background noise and choose to drift into peace.

p.s. i wrote this using the traveler edition of freewrite, gifted to me alongside my stay at reset hotel in joshua tree. the experience was unmatched: none of the usual laptop or phone distractions, and a backdrop i couldn’t have dreamt up if i tried. thank you, thank you, thank you.