I'm sure you have had that experience where you can taste that ice cream sundae on the tip of your tongue, that hot fudge oozing down the back of your throat. You're almost there, but that sundae is staring at you just out of reach as if it is playing a little trick right in front of you. Our travel experiences today were like that almost whimsy. 

It began with a smooth ride to the airport and the quest for a chocolate muffin. I almost found a chocolate muffin but it was blueberry and then my husband surprised me with something to eat completely different than the muffin I was first thinking. And as I know by now, there is whimsy in unpredicted happenings-particularly food. 

With that almost chocolate chip muffin we boarded our plan and almost took off. I could feel that whipped cream and that cherry almost on the tip of my tongue but no prevail. We waited twenty minutes and then thirty minutes. We were informed that they had lost power and thus were trying to find our bags. They had almost found all the bags but twenty of the bags they could not yet find. Almost all. Almost those chopped peanuts sprinkled above the cloud of whipped cream, but not quite. 

We finally pushed off from the gate an hour an 5 minutes past the original time. This wouldn't be a huge problem except our connecting flight would be taking off essentially right when we landed. We were told that almost all of us had connecting flights within 10 minutes of landing and that he could amost be sure but not quite sure that the airplanes would be waiting just a bit to catch those fleeing passengers. 

It turns out we almost missed our flight, but we didn't. For the first time I took a little nose dive into that icecream sundae. Amost one of those moments when you start to dig in but instead your nose catches on those white clouded dreams of whipped cream hiding the kingdom of icecream beneath. Our nose was touching that cream and let me say, when you have been chasing that same sundae all day, even a little sticky nose brings a smile to the face. 

When we landed we were almost in complete relief. Almost. Until my husband received an alert on his phone notifying him that his baggage had most likely not made the aircraft and would be brought on a later plane. We were almost in full whimsy mode when we went to the baggage claim area and she insisted we wait until all bags had been brought out because she had seen a failed alert system more times than just once. We prayed and waited and crossed our fingers and then our toes, but even the bags that looked almost like the one we had brought-was not quite the same bag. 

A bit exhausted at this point we went back to the baggage claim area. The lady was quite pleasant and told us mostly about what would happen if we had "almost" lost our luggage. She assured us we would get it the next evening if not the following day. A bit tired all over now, we trudged out to the 28x bus stop to wait for the last bus of the night. We almost missed the bus (or so we thought) because we arrived around 12:05 AM. The bus was supposed to stop at 12:10 but after a while, we were convinced we would never see that bus. Finally, it came around 1:05 AM. Through the bumps and bends of Pittsburgh we joined a few others who had been waiting for that bus as well-because their lives depended on it. Finally, we walked Cardiac Hill (one of the steepest hills in Pittsburgh) into our car and then home. 

We ate a whimsical brunch around 2:30 AM  and enjoyed some laughter because we were finally able to enjoy that sundae we had been talking about earlier even if the parts were missing or dripping or sloshing or squishing. But then one thing that is important to remember throughout this whole day is actually concretely being able to label "almost whimsy" Almost whimsy is essentially another word for "hope." Think about it, everytime there is an ice cream sundae experience, you find yourself holding on to the cup or the spoon and thinking the best. You find yourself drawn closer to that cherry when others around you are cheering you on, acting like your family and lifting you up. Those tiny moments of "almost whimsy" are sometimes even more important than those moments of full-blown whimsy because they demand patience and virtue, reflection and honesty, love and a trust that all will be okay with a little faith a little heart. So the next time an ice cream sundae is put just within reach, fight to get it. The fighting through faith creates an experience uneasily forgotten. Catch those almost whimsies, keep them in a jar and contemplate how you plan on getting there and fransforming that almost sundae into a double-decker, multi-layer scoop of goodness. Sometimes those longest "almost whimsies" transform into the most beautifully developed whimsies. Allow those magic moments to take their time. There is no rush.