Nine Lives

Florence with David Whyte

For the last 10 days my wife Janell and I have been in the company of the poet David Whyte in the hills outside of Florence, Italy, along with 30 equally ardent companions.  We would spend the morning with David, listening to him talk and recite poetry designed to open the soul to a new conversation with the world.  In the afternoon and evening we would hike through the vineyard and olive country along back roads and trails.  There were no bullhorns, tour buses or frantic dashes from one site to another.  The pace was measured, the visits respectful and the relationships adult.  And from time to time we were joined by Italian artists, musicians, historians, butchers, chefs, fisherman and one really neat Count and Countess.  One evening we heard a 92 year old woman recite a poem she wrote at the age of 16, after the allies drove out the Germans in WWII. Most of the eyes were damp. It will be difficult to be an every day tourist after this experience.

My life is in transition.  The intense travel of the last 10 years will be slowly replaced with a bit of old fashioned routine.  I look forward to being a home body for a while and spending more time in my studio surrounded by words.  It is a time of simplification, inner downsizing and becoming acquainted with parts of me that have long been forgotten.  It is an exciting time and I feel an intense anticipation of things unknown and undone.  Life is good.

TSA

When you travel a couple hundred thousand miles a year you spend a lot of time with TSA.  I know they are trying to do a good job; I see the meetings, the pep rallies, the handoffs, some teamwork and a genuine attempt, for sure in the small towns, to be pleasant.  But I've been thinking about something that makes less sense the more I encounter it.

SSSSS on the bottom of your ticket means that you have been selected for the full treatment.  While you try to watch your valuables, rubber gloves pat the most dangerous parts of your body.  In Helena Montana I also had everything removed from my backpack, swiped with the bomb detector paper and analyzed.  As things were being placed back in my backpack the vigilant TSA agent spotted a small bottle of hand sanitizer I always carry in the mesh water bottle holder on the outside of the pack.  He said, "Do you have a plastic bag for that? If not I will have to confiscate it.  You can get a bag over there," and he pointed to  a small kiosk selling refreshments.  I smiled and walked away.  He was doing his job exactly as he has been told to do it and when what he does is illogical, who am I to say anything.  You can't win with logic, I have tried.  All it will get you is a night in jail if you are unlucky enough to encounter one of the really strident TSA folks.  So what is this blog about? Simply this.

The most important activities of the TSA are the unscripted ones.  Like the pipe bomb Jamacian who was apprehended in Orlando thanks to an observation of his unusual behavior and good screening.  The things that TSA does that protect us the most are not scripted, they are innovative and spontaneous.  And yet, every day we take the TSA personnel through thousands of trials where we deaden any independent or innovative thoughts they might have.  We train them to follow the script and never, never use their judgment. Yet it is their judgment that we need the most.  Seems a bit contradictory.

Would my 2 Onces of hand sanitizer have been safer  in a plastic bag.  Of course not. Did the TSA agent, who clearly knew that what he was doing made no sense at all, I mean it had already gone through security and I had gone through a random test, become a little less likely to use his judgment when it might be important.  I think so.

"No, I replied."