A Little Gift

Sometimes Hashem gives you some small, unexpected pleasure that just makes your day.

I have been dreading my flight to California. When I flew to Boston just a few weeks ago I arrived so tired. Ever since, I have been anticipating that by the time I get to California, several hours further away, I will be ready to sleep for 30 thousand hours.

I am flying from Tel Aviv to Paris, where I will be stuck in (yucky, dirty, smelly) De Gaulle airport for 5 hours, just long enough to be bored but not long enough to leave the airport. Then I'm flying to Dallas, and from there to California.

Yuck, yuck, yuck. Dread, dread, dread.

About 3 days ago I was talking to my excellent friend Yael . . . you know, she with whom I have been close since we were 7 years old? She who made aliyah a few years before I did? She who decorated my apartment and stocked my fridge with food before I first arrived in Israel? She who continues to be an excellent friend? She with whom uncomfortable silences are not uncomfortable, because we're such old friends?

It turns out that Yael is going to L.A. next week, and we will be on the same flights to Paris and Dallas. How amazing is that? She's a great travel companion, I can tell. We already agreed that if one of us wants to sleep, we won't bother each other. Companionship when you want it, silence when you don't. It is clutch.

The worst thing is when there is someone annoying on your flight whom you know, and then you feel like you have to talk to them even though you don't want to. What a wonderful gift that if Hashem is going to put someone I know on the flight, it's a good friend with whom I feel comfortable just being quiet.