Windowlicker

Once I was on a trip that required multiple flights and the first leg was cancelled at the gate and it was only a five-day trip (including Trans-Atlantic travel) and my last vacation for who knows how long and someone was waiting for me and I ended up spending about a month's rent all told to get to my destination (to be fair, I thought there was a chance I might not miss my next, nonrefundable, flight). It was extremely stressful and I cried a lot and I also had the unnerving experience of flying across an ocean with absolutely no one in the world that I know knowing where I was; I was on a different flight, on a different airline, flying into a different airport than scheduled, after running across a parking lot to catch the very last flight out of JFK. Once I landed in London, I caught a cab at Heathrow to Gatwick, and about halfway there, the driver informed me that I would miss my flight to the next country by about ten minutes. At first, I thought I might just... melt from the stress and disappointment. As he went on about how I could go to Brighton for the day until the next flight left (it was an uncommon destination, could be later that day, could be the next day), I tuned out and thought about the moment I was in. At the time, the pound to dollar exchange was exactly one to two. So it was a three hundred dollar cab, if you can believe it. And I am in no way the kind of person who has ever had that kind of money in my entire life, and probably never will, and even if I did, that's not what I would spend it on. Anyway, I looked at the green countryside as we sped down the highway and I thought about how I was in a place I'd never seen before, and might never see again, and I was alive, and I was on my way somewhere, and stretched my legs out and and breathed, and in the end, it's turned out to be one of the nicest memories of my whole life to date. I think of it every time I see or think of a black cab, and I smile.

[London Taxi Cab, original drawing, $50 at Etsy]

Windowlicker - from the French for window shopping: faire du lèche-vitrine - often appears on Tuesday and Thursdays at 10am EST-ish.

Comments

[Marco]

It's those moments in life when you give yourself to it that provide some of the most lasting memories.

[Cafe Fashionista]

I so want that drawing.

[Anne]

I have been on that trip, too: the weeping and the peace; the horror at myself for suddenly cashing in all my chips on something that, ordinarily, I'd never consider; the wonder of travel, too. Lovely.