I’m sitting in the airport on my way home from a great long weekend in New Orleans exhausted, and ready to go home, but fulfilled in a way that cannot be found in the video conference calls, texts, emails and other general hustle and bustle of every day life. The moments making up the whole experience were an eclectic mix that never failed to remind me just how different and wonderful and yet how the same we all are.
It was old friends and new friends over drinks, sitting at the bar with the oyster shuckers at Felix’s and talking with them about our teenagers, watching the end of the football game at Mulates with the dishwashers and bartenders last night just after closing. It was a 7 foot pink Wookiee in the Chewbacca parade and my boss mixing into the raucous crowd in his cape. It was the common humanity of every day people 80 years ago trying to show through the horrors of World War II. It was trying southwestern flavored crickets, the aquarium touch tank and a shared appreciation for Ologies. It was stories about travel, shared loves of animals, ultra marathons, beignets, Cajun food, funky boots, bourbon, sloths, laughing and more laughing.
And now as I go back home, I look forward to seeing my son. I know he’ll do the teenage thing and ignore most of the anecdotes, so I can only hope that eventually he’ll find the gratitude that I’m flying home with today.
Finding Order in the Chaos 