Kindness During the Coronavirus Crisis

I'm writing this on the plane from Hawai'i to Palo Alto.

I want to share something beautiful about travel on this day. This March 10, 2020 day, with the Coronavirus firmly in our midst.
 
I had so many phone calls and messages from writers in my upcoming mainland workshops deciding about planes and wanting to hear if I think it's okay or not okay to gather, and in answering them, because I needed to answer them, I was late getting to the Kona Airport.
 
I arrived with less than an hour till my flight would take off, ten minutes till boarding, and the line through security was around the corner. Maybe 200 people in that line.

The lovely agent at Southwest who took my bag told me I would miss my flight. I would most likely miss my flight. There was nothing she could do, she said. Maybe try again tomorrow.
 
But I needed to get there today.

I asked the woman in front of me in the back of the line if she was on the flight to San Jose that was about to board. I told her I was on that flight.
 
"I'm not on it," she said. "But try to get to the front of the line. Sometimes people are kind."

Sometimes people are kind.

We're in the middle of the Coronavirus. People are hunkered down... sticking to themselves... keeping a distance. Aren't touching.

But here's how it played out:

I asked every single person in front of me if I could move in front of them in the line and I explained why. Every single person said yes.
 
"Please do."
 
"You'll make it."
 
"Go right ahead."
 
"It'll be okay."

I was shocked.
 
One young woman, about fifty people up, was distressed because she and her young daughter were on the same flight to San Jose, but she was too shy to ask anyone. I took her with me.
 
The three of us moved to the front of the line, one by one, and we made it on this plane.

So, in a time of quarantine and fear, people are kind. Not one person... tourist, local, young, elderly... rolled their eyes or hesitated. Said "No, because you should have been on time." And of course, I should have been on time. But I wasn't. No one tried to teach me a lesson today.
 
Maybe airport terminals are the place -at least in my life- where kindness manifests in unexpected ways. You'd think it would be another place... a theater, a synagogue, a church. But it's an airport.
 
A man took my carry-on and put it up in the overhead compartment because I was carrying so much stuff.

A flight attendant gave me (gave all of us) two snacks not one. And I got the whole can of seltzer, not just a cup.

A male flight attendant is walking up and down the aisle as I write this asking each of us how we're doing.

Today I learned, firsthand, that during the Coronavirus we have each other's backs.
 
And because we have each other's backs, and because today played out like it did, I feel armed with so much positive energy (in addition to all the aloe-infused rubbing alcohol I brought with me) that no damn Coronavirus is getting through.
 
My lungs already had their crisis with lung cancer in 2008. Now they're strong, solid, they take in enough air to sing and call out and dive underwater and breathe deeply.
 
The Biology of Belief, my loves reading this. It's powerful.
 
Here's to the kindness I experienced in an airport during the Coronavirus crisis.
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It's something.