As we are skimming the tops of the clouds and the plane is bouncing around just enough to put my nerves on edge, I figured I would get started on my next post, as I seemed to have disappeared for the last two weeks.
It all began a week ago…
I had a good friend visit for a weekend, then realized I had massive amounts of packing that I had yet to do. Shoving, squishing, and shifting, I managed to get the entire contents of my apartment into my Subaru. After strapping the barstools to the roof, I turned in my key. It was the most amazing thing – I was out and, like Bilbo, going on an adventure. I wasn’t going to miss my apartment, my ‘nook’ in the mountains, and my friends would stay in touch. I had this wave of calm. That pure, genuine feeling that whatever is going to happen is exactly what’s supposed to happen.
So yesterday, after my last day of work, I jumped into the car, and drove. Two hours, a caffeine crash, and unloading the car later, I flopped on my bed, ready for the first stint of traveling.
A family friend offered to drive my mother and I to the airport. My siblings and father, who I am going to visit before my big departure, know nothing of my mum coming on this trip with me. (And hopefully have not figured it out after the dozen slip ups in the last few weeks.)
Our friend had mentioned something about eating Guinea pigs, which some how led my brain on the rollercoaster that is my thought process. I started to think ‘where do they get their name, it can’t be New Guinea? No they eat Guinea pigs in south america. Its dog they eat in New Guinea.’ This reminded me of my friend in high school who had met a man that remembered when there were cannibals there. Somehow, like a true anthropologist, I was able to squeeze cannibalism into the conversation. After a few comments and grunts of agreement, the conversation had fizzled into the awkward ‘what-do-we-say-about-cannibalism?’ silence.
The flight’s unusual in that it is ‘typical’. I am not used to the kids two seats up wailing, or the heavy turbulence. I am what my family calls the ‘lucky traveler’. (Knock on wood.) I was able to spend a week in Fiji on $75, and have a track record of getting the seat that the person next to me either a) never shows, or b) is really nice and smells lovely. While Mum is really nice and smells lovely, I still have the window with amazing views on one side, her on the other.  Beside her is a man from Florida. A big bushy mustache and social disposition, which is welcomed in all other circumstances, isn’t high on my list of activities during take off and landing. (I am usually white knuckling the arm rests, knowing the death grip would ensure that I would survive in any event that may happen. Of course we were given seats at the back of the plane, which my mum pointed out is the part of the plane that usually has the least amount of damage in a crash. Mixed with the rockclimber grip on the armrest, I’m invincible at that point.)
After giving the story of living on the boat, I start to tune out and focus on looking out the small window at the wing of the plane. By-golly, if something was going to happen during takeoff, I was going to be the first to know. Mum tries to pull me out of my stare down with the wing by asking me about my friend I will be staying with when I first get to Australia. It nearly works, and then I get the questions from mustache guy about my degree in anthropology/archaeology. For a brief moment, I will admit trying to figure out how to fit in cannibalism.
Once in the air, the turbulence was light, but frequent. I have thought about a comedian I listened to on the internet radio, saying something about how flying is like humans slapping god in the face. We overcame any evolutionary roadblock on that front, and how would he/she/it/they feel about that? I can’t help but look out the window and say a little silent prayer that runs along the lines of ‘yo god. So, you know that was a joke right?’
Its not that I’m afraid of flying, that’s why I love window seats. I love looking down at earth and feeling like this is as close to being an astronaught as I will get for a while. (I’m going to be optimistic in my future as a space archaeologist.) I just think I would do better in orbit (which is defined as ‘constant free fall’) as opposed to the rattle of turbulence that makes me feel like I’m in a human maraca.