After learning my flight was
detained 4 hours,
I heard the announcement:
If anyone in the vicinity of gate
4-A understands any Arabic,
Please come to the gate
immediately.
Well—one pauses these days. Gate
4-A was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full
traditional Palestinian dress,
Just like my grandma wore, was
crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service
person. Talk to her. What is her
Problem? we told her the flight
was going to be four hours late and she
Did this.
I put my arm around her and spoke
to her haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti,
stani stani schway, min fadlick,
Sho bit se-wee?
The minute she heard any words
she knew—however poorly used—
She stopped crying.
She thought our flight had been
canceled entirely.
She needed to be in El Paso for
some major medical treatment the
Following day. I said no, no,
we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,
Who is picking you up? Let’s call
him and tell him.
We called her son and I spoke
with him in English.
I told him I would stay with his
mother till we got on the plane and
Would ride next to her—Southwest.
She talked to him. Then we called
her other sons just for the fun of it.
Then we called my dad and he and
she spoke for a while in Arabic and
Found out of course they had ten
shared friends.
Then I thought just for the heck
of it why not call some Palestinian
Poets I know and let them chat
with her. This all took up about 2 hours.
She was laughing a lot by then.
Telling about her life. Answering
Questions.
She had pulled a sack of homemade
mamool cookies—little powdered
Sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with
dates and nuts—out of her bag—
And was offering them to all the
women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single
woman declined one. It was like a
Sacrament. The traveler from
Argentina, the traveler from California,
The lovely woman from Laredo—we
were all covered with the same
Powdered sugar. And smiling.
There are no better cookies.
And then the airline broke out
the free beverages from huge coolers—
Non-alcoholic—and the two little
girls for our flight, one African
American, one Mexican
American—ran around serving us all apple juice
And lemonade and they were
covered with powdered sugar too.
And I noticed my new best
friend—by now we were holding hands—
Had a potted plant poking out of
her bag, some medicinal thing,
With green furry leaves. Such an
old country traveling tradition. Always
Carry a plant. Always stay rooted
to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of
late and weary ones and thought,
This is the world I want to live
in. The shared world.
Not a single person in this
gate—once the crying of confusion stopped
—has seemed apprehensive about
any other person.
They took the cookies. I wanted
to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.
Not everything is lost.
