Deja Vu

It looked the same. 

It smelled the same. 

It sounded the same. 

But it sure as fuck didn’t feel the same. 

So, this is what it was like to step foot inside an airport again? 

The old boarding pass in my phone stared up at me like a memory from another life…  some relic from a distant past or bygone era coated in verdigris. 

When was it that people actually flew on planes?  Was that memory even real?  Was I that person? 

My last boarding pass was still sitting in my phone’s wallet.  Usually, I delete them after I fly and replace it with my next flight.  The date was March 2, 2020.  My company had officially shut down travel on March 16, 2020.  I had a flight scheduled for that week that I had to cancel. 

It’s a trip walking back into an airport. 

It’s hard to describe how surreal it feels when this had been a constant staple of my life for so long and so often. I almost feel like planes should be artifacts buried in a time capsule by now. 

Yet while the world outside has changed, at the same time nothing has changed.  The only real difference is that people are wearing masks. 

Life goes on.  We adapt.  We assimilate to the new normal like sands through an hourglass. 

After breezing through the TSA security line, I found a seat in the relatively empty lobby near my flight’s gate.  Stickers on every other vinyl backrest reading: “Don’t sit here, keep one seat open for social distancing,” greeted me as a grim reminder that we still weren’t out of the woods yet. 

I plopped down and began my usual flying routine – lap top open, earbuds in, water – check.  I’d have an hour before my flight to Phoenix, so might as well get busy. 

Time was a’wasting, and there were corporate shareholders to reward! 

(wink) 

Suddenly, a memory of nostalgia washed over me like a wave from a beach of scattered realities.  And I remembered my last Uber ride before the pandemic had struck like a thief in the night, stealing anything and everything ordinary within sight. 

I was being driven from our Folsom office to the Sacramento Airport. 

Ronnie…. yeah, Ronnie was his name.  He was almost like an alien wearing a suit of skin and bones, he was so wild and unique. 

But he had left an impression on me. 

He had said one of those one-liners that he hadn’t even been aware of.  The words had stopped me dead in my tracks, wrestled me to the ground with the pure simplicity and bold truth resonating from them like the golden rule itself. 

It was a sentence that could speak for a lifetime… 

— 

“I’ve accumulated a lot of things in my life, but wealth isn’t one of them.” 

My Lyft driver said the words to me almost nonchalantly, as if he didn’t have a single care or concern in the world, as if he was driving for Lyft as a favor because they had asked him out of the kindness of their hearts rather than him needing a job. 

It was almost comical, but I liked this guy. 

He was a fucking riot. 

Back in 2019, when the world was still a placard of normalcy and you could look someone in the eyes without wearing a mask, I was a frequent business traveler.  Nothing crazy, but I’d usually do a weekly flight to either Sacramento or Phoenix from LA.  Quick 1.5 hour jaunts, the kind of flights when as soon as you hit full altitude, you’re already heading back down to land – barely enough time to even knock back a cocktail. 

When I’d travel, I made a conscious effort of always trying to talk to my Uber or Lyft drivers.  It was important to me. 

Sometimes it wouldn’t work, and you’d get a few monosyllabic responses from the driver’s seat occupant before understanding it would be a silent ride.  But more often than not, you’d get a good conversation and learn a thing or two. 

I’ve been on a lot of rides with other businesspeople, and they just ignore their drivers as if they’re robots, or some fucking servant placed on earth just for them. 

These are people doing jobs for crying out loud!  Not some object as common place as a rock in the road. 

I don’t know, I just don’t like this.  It just doesn’t sit well with me. 

If a person is doing a job, or within conversation range, I think basic human decency is to acknowledge that person.  Ask them a few questions, engage your fellow man, converse and share experiences.  Each person has a unique story to tell, why not try to glean what I can from them in the short amount of time. 

At least that’s just how I am.  I have this natural curiosity about people and how they got to be the way they are. 

Plus, I like to laugh a lot.  And laughing goes hand in hand with being friendly.  It just seems like such a waste to ignore someone… 

“I’m in a band, you know?” 

“No, I didn’t.”  I answered my driver playfully and with one of those grins you see plastered up on the freeway billboards like glittering lottery tickets just waiting to make your dreams come true. 

“Yeah, man.  Nothing major yet.  But I’m recording my album.  I already got my demo though… wanna check it out?  I can throw on a few tunes so you can get a taste?” 

I nodded to him from the back seat in acceptance, as he eyed me excitedly through the rear-view mirror.  

My driver’s name was Ronnie. 

He was a sloppy white guy in his late fifties or early sixties to my best guess.  A shock of grayish red hair stared out at me from the back of his head, tucked underneath his ballcap like it was about to burst a prison break. 

He fumbled around, pulling random tidbits out of his center console until he located the disc.  It was a messy car, but I didn’t mind.  This guy was a character, and I could already tell I’d be in for a gem of a ride.  

“So what do you do boss?”  He asked me while popping in the tunes. 

“M&A,” I answered without even thinking. 

I was staring out the window, lost in thought from the previous business meeting I had just left, already feeling the tentacles of that perpetual corporate grind slithering all over my body. 

Invasive.  Prickly.  Sticky. 

Things hadn’t gone well.  Our Northern California operations were a mess, and it was going to take one hell of an effort for a turn around. 

The silence suddenly pulled me out of my reverie, and I glanced up at the rear-view mirror and met Ronnie’s expectant eyes. 

I put two and two together and quickly apologized… “sorry, umm… mergers and acquisitions is what I do.  Finance.  Business stuff…” I trailed off. 

He probably thought I was one of those snobby business pricks he always had to tow around to the airport.  Talking down to him like he was less than me.  Trying to show off how smart I was. 

I hadn’t meant to sound like that or answer him with some business lingo he wouldn’t know.  I was dead tired – worn down, chewed up and spit out by the corporate machine like excrement from a sewer pipe – and the answer came out automatic. 

It was an accident. 

As if on cue, his speakers blared to life and saved me from any additional embarrassment. 

Ronnie was rocking out and playing air guitar between steering.  At first I was a little alarmed, but after a few bars of music, I could tell this wasn’t his first rodeo. 

I wish I could say that Ronnie’s music was some of the best shit I had ever heard.  I do, I really do.  But this racket was so fucking terrible I could barely listen to it. 

Now, just for credibility, I’ve been a drummer most of my life.  I can read and write music, have been classically trained, play some pretty good self-taught guitar as well as I can handle myself on a piano.  This isn’t a brag, it’s simply to let you know that when it comes to intricate rhythms and off-time signatures that the normal ear would find repulsive and dissonant, I revel in it.  That’s some of my favorite stuff.  It’s almost impossible for me to find something I can’t listen to. 

And then there’s Ronnie… hahaha.  I was hoping he just might have one ounce of talent, but he didn’t.  It was some of the worst crap I had ever heard. 

“That’s good shit,” I lied to him. 

“Yeah, I know,” he answered without even missing a beat. 

I almost respected him for how clueless he was.  Sometimes it takes talent to be that bad at things… or delusional. 

“I’m just working odd jobs until my music career takes off, you know.  It will probably only be a matter of time.” 

“Yeah,” I agreed with him.  “Hopefully things go well for you.” 

I was trying to think of some way to get him to turn off the music.  The next song started out with screeching that might as well have been an ice pick driven into my brain. 

“So what else do you have going on?” I asked, looking out the window again.  More preoccupied with my own life than any answer he would give me. 

“Oh, I got this farm gig in the middle of the city.  It’s this restoration project for a field there… open space… growing stuff.” 

“Sustainability,” I chimed in. 

“Yeah, that.  Su-stain-a-bility.  I also got a few other random things in the works.” 

He paused, and that’s when he said it.  He said the line that I would never forget and be the entire inspiration for this post. 

“I’ve accumulated a lot of things in my life, but wealth isn’t one of them.” 

He kept talking, but I wasn’t listening to him anymore.  That one line had wrapped me in a blanket of sadness – remembering and realizing that this was how most of the world functioned. 

Yet, there I go again passing judgement.  Why was sadness my first reaction?  Maybe Ronnie had lived a life twice as full as mine and he should be the one pitying me? 

Or maybe not… 

I didn’t know how to answer him at first.  I let his confession sink in. 

“…I have a little social security I’ll try to live off, but no pension.  I’m still hoping the music will take care of things.” 

All I could do was nod. 

It was a nod of defeat, but Ronnie would never know that. 

I felt my privilege pushing down on me like an ant under a god’s thumb inside that small car, constricting, suffocating. 

Ronnie’s music sure as hell would never save him.  He’d be left on his own. 

I had no words of wisdom to offer him.  I had no answers.  So small chat filled the rest of our time like empty lounge music until we arrived at the Sacramento Airport. 

After I stepped out of the car and grabbed my bag, I turned back to look at him.  He was beaming at me, “that was some great conversation, man.  I enjoyed it.” 

I gave him the only thing I had left in my pocket. 

Hope. 

“Me too,” I couldn’t help but smile in response.  “And hey Ronnie, before you make it as rock star, maybe keep a couple plan B’s in mind.  Just for shits and giggles.  You’re going to make it, because we all make it to somewhere eventually, right?” 

His grin in reply was the making of how legends are born. 

“You got it pal.  You got it.” 

-Q-FI 

— 

What would your response be to someone who told you, “I’ve accumulated a lot of things in my life, but wealth isn’t one of them?”