Me still smiling before leaving LAX airport
My personal in-flight television screen says that we have traveled 1585 miles from Los Angeles. It’s hard to tell because we are surrounded by 360 degrees of the Pacific Ocean. It’s blue skies and sea blue all around. My medical mask hugs my face, simultaneously keeping my breath warm and my lungs from interacting with swine flu or other airborne gross-ness.
It’s happening. I’m on a plane headed to Nepal. My best friend is sitting next to me, my camera pack is in the overhead compartment and I’m off to make my first movie. It’s a claustrophobic-bathroom, swollen-footed dream come true.
Because we’ve been anticipating this journey for close to six months, Patty and I are extraordinarily prepared. We’ve thought through every possible ailment, taken every precaution, and set ourselves up for success. Now comes the waiting and crossing of fingers. Will “the story” we hope to tell actually exist? Will we be able to capture it on tape? It’s leap of faith time.
All signs point to a raucous adventure, indeed. I awake to find a text message that Patty has already lost her ipod and we haven’t even left LA. My roommate Tara and I arrived at Patty’s house to load the car with our luggage and get on the road to LAX International Airport. After knocking on the door, Patty offered me an English Muffin for the road. I gladly accepted. I should have declined.
Patty displays her disbelief in her ill-timed injury
While cutting the muffin, Patty sliced her finger. Badly. Right before we are about to head to the airport. Through tear-soaked eyes she asked me whether or not we needed to head to the ER and get her stitches. I remained calm, looked at her profusely bleeding appendage and made the uneducated medical decision to forego stitches in favor of Neosporin and a band-aid. The good news is, that was the right decision. Patty stayed all in once piece and we hopped into the car.
During the ride, we listened to Ingrid Michelson’s recent album. One of her singles is entitled “Keep Breathing.” The irony of said instruction is beyond humorous as you’ll read on. At the end of the song, the talented vocalist builds musical tension by repeating the mantra “All You Can Do Is Keep Breathing.” A fitting mantra for the ever-stressed 20 something, Patty and I have repeated those very lyrics on multiple occasions. For the purposes of embracing the morning craziness, I jokingly changed the lyrics to “all you can do is keep bleeding.” Patty pointed her bandaged finger to me with a smile on her face and said “I hate you.”
Upon arrival at LAX, we head towards Terminal 4- the acclaimed Tom Bradley International terminal- and wave goodbye to my roommate. Then we learn that our flight is in fact leaving from Terminal 7. We have six bags, two English Breakfast tea lattes, and about a quarter mile of space between us and our actual destination. We scurry our way down to T7 and arrive panting.
Patty and I simply laugh it off
After waiting in an extended check-in line, we hurry over to Security. I let them know in advance that my entire carry-on is filled with camera equipment. Wires, harddrives, lenses, mics… we are loaded and there is no way to simply take it out of the bag and place it in one of those white bins. I mentally prepare myself to have to go through special security and am immediately told that my assumptions were valid. It was me, a private security officer, and a shrinking window of time before our flight was to depart.
While I was mentally prepared for additional security, I was not mentally prepared for the officer to remove every. Single. Individual. Item from the bag. He scanned them separately. He brought the monopod (think tripod with one leg) back to his supervisor for even more security because it looked too much like a weapon. But Patty and I must have been on happy pills because we handled the entire thing with grace, and ascended the escalator towards gate 76 with a smile.
Our smiles faded quickly when we reached the summit of said escalator. The voice over the loudspeaker greeted our ascension with “Final boarding call for flight 891 with service to Tokyo. Final boarding.” Oh yeah, you betcha. We are the farthest distance possible from our gate and have to RUN.
In case the mental picture isn’t self-evident, think back on those movies or cable crime dramas where someone is rushing through the airport. Perhaps McCauley Culkin chasing after his assumed father in Home Alone. And we know how that sprint ended. He’s fatherless and alone in New York.
In our case, the terminal is packed, most folks are leisurely wheeling carry-ons, and then there is us. We are sprinting like there is no tomorrow. The experience conjured up 9th grade physical education when my teacher told me I wouldn’t get an A in the course unless I ran a mile in under 8 minutes. Ever the over-achiever, I arrived at the finish line at 7:56 with a burning pain in my chest. I got there, but it hurt.
We booked it across the entire airport today, folks. Barely avoiding collision and barely permitting air into our lungs, Patty and I got on the plane. But it hurt.
And the Ingrid Michelson song has come full circle. As we claim our seats on this journey, panting and gasping to regain a normal heartbeat, I smile and think “All we can do is keep breathing.”
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Janelle K. Eagle is infamous for always having her hands tied up in multiple projects simultaneously. She's directed a lot of theater, worked on some films, and raised lots of money for non-profits. She travels all the time and loves to share her videos, photography and writing via this blog. 
