You’ve heard the chaos theory about a butterfly flapping its wings in Tokyo and influencing the weather in Aberdeen?
My butterfly is Joy.
Over the years we appear to have settled into an arrangement.
Joy handles the optimism.
I handle contingencies in case that fails.
Neither of us formally agreed to this arrangement, but that does not appear to have affected its operation.
The fog incident remains one of my favourites.
At approximately god knows what o’clock in the morning New Zealand time, Joy called from San Francisco Airport.
There was fog. In San Francisco. Bizarre.
This had apparently interrupted her travel plans.
The fact that I was asleep, twelve thousand kilometres away, or otherwise unable to influence the weather appears largely irrelevant to her urge to call for assistance.
And so, I was consulted.
I considered her options as seriously as the situation warranted.
Every conceivable solution appeared to involve first leaving the airport, preferably by plane.
Eventually the conversation reached its inevitable conclusion with her asking:
“Well, what am I supposed to do?”
“Grab a cocktail and wait for it to clear.”
The advice lacked ambition.
Nevertheless, approximately twelve hours later, she arrived home.
The passport story is even better.
Some years ago I drove Joy to Christchurch Airport at an hour normally associated with dairy deliveries and poor life choices.
Having deposited her at the terminal, I returned home and went back to bed.
My phone remained on “Sleep” Focus.
This would prove significant.
Somewhere behind me, while I was driving home, events were already unfolding.
Joy had discovered she did not have her passport.
A later examination of my call log would show several attempts to summon me back to help.
Unable to contact me, Joy took a taxi home and commenced a frantic search.
The passport was not in its usual place.
Drawers were searched.
Cupboards were searched.
Bags were searched.
The level of concern increased accordingly.
I took a breath and framed the question as delicately as I could with the amount of adrenaline in the room.
“You checked your handbag and pockets, didn’t you?”
There was a pause.
The passport was in the pocket of the coat she was wearing.
The same coat she had worn to the airport.
The same coat she had worn in the taxi.
The same coat she had worn while searching for the passport.
The passport had accompanied her faithfully through every stage of the emergency.
The truly astonishing part is that she still made the flight.
Had the same thing happened to me, I am quite certain I would have been politely informed that actions have consequences.
Joy, however, appears to operate under a different set of administrative laws.
Airline staff ushered her through with reassuring smiles.
“Don’t worry.”
“Everything is fine.”
“It happens to everyone.”
Demonstrably, it does not.
People forget their passports, of course.
What people do not generally do is make trips to, from and back to the airport because they were unaware of the contents of their own coat pockets.
The connecting tissue between the passport story and the fog-at-San-Francisco story is not travel, or airports.
It is Joy.
And optimism.
The quiet confidence that things will work out somehow.
And, irritatingly, they usually do.
The world keeps worlding, and butterflies keep flapping their wings.
And somewhere a planner sighs.
But the fog clears.
Passports are found.
And sometimes, just sometimes, a contingency plan prevents complete disaster.
Fortunately, between us, we seem to have both.
Anyway.
Remind me to tell you about the concertina file sometime