This is not a vacation. It is an expedition. Maybe a vision quest. Or an adventure. I have a tough time hearing the word “adventure” lately. It has just a bit of a condescending edge to it. Like the whole EPL thing. “Oh, you’re going to have such an adventure!” I suppose. I wonder if President Jefferson said those words to Meriweather Lewis and William Clark. Sounds like I’m off to go tobogganing or something. Or have become a character in a Dr. Seuss book. Yet, despite my hypersensitivity, the word is accurate; its definition “an unusual and exciting, typically hazardous, experience or activity.” Sounds about right.
I contemplated this as I was sitting near Gate 38 at Los Angeles International, waiting to board V-Australia’s flight 008 on 10 Oct, seat 42A, with service to Brisbane and connecting to Sydney for an arrival at my final destination at 11:30 a.m. on Wednesday, 12 Oct. (You notice how I’m already using that funny way of writing the date? I’m so down with this whole Commonwealth Country thing.) I look around, and anywhere that there’s an electrical outlet, there’s a person between the age of 12 and 22 with a laptop or cell phone plugged in. And me. I managed to exhaust my iphone battery by not knowing how to get logged out of Skype, and returning texts and calls to all of my friends who wants to speak with me “one last time” before I go. I love you all, but please, I have a phone number you can call. Free. Almost like I’m not gone at all. I did that on purpose. So you don’t have to talk to me one last time. That feels a little bit creepy. I’m not going as a convict, for Pete’s sake.
A note to those who bring their own water with them. TSA agents who are on their game will in fact have you pack up your laptop and quart-sized bag of toiletries and escort you back out to try it again. I had that opportunity in LA. The agent was nice, yet very serious about her instructions. As we exited, I asked her just how she stood the smell of feet every day. She sighed and said, “It’s worse when they spray air freshener.” Note to self: do not apply for a TSA job.
Oh, and a brief digression: I found out that I can suspend my cell phone number for up to six months and pay very little-like, $10-during the suspended time. That eliminates the entire issue of accidentally bumping my phone off airplane mode and receiving a cascade of text messages and voice mails, and paying a six-digit telephone bill. For which I would bill each of you individually. Anyway, just a note to those who might want to try this whole expedition/adventure/vision quest thing.
I say expedition because I’m going to be gone for 107 days. And will go to several different places with the intent of discerning whether I consider these places inhabitable. Isn’t that what Lewis and Clark did? Maybe instead of analogies to “Eat, Pray, Love,” we could perhaps look at Ambrose’s “Undaunted Courage” as well. The title is a bit grandiose, but, that aside, I feel more like L&C than Elizabeth Gilbert. Except I don’t have a crew of men pulling a boat upstream on the Missouri. And I don’t have a Newfoundland dog with me either. And I brought nothing to trade with the natives to keep them from killing me. Aside from that …it’s exactly the same.
The flight boarded promptly at 11:20 p.m. (or 23:20 as they track here in casinos). I was back in steerage, 42A, window seat, making it awkward to climb over the nice couple from Brisbane sitting in 42B and 42C. The woman had the center seat, and immediately put a neck pillow on, covered up with her blanket, and fell asleep. So much for conversation. I immediately started watching movies. When was the last time any of you watched three movies at one sitting? (Okay, maybe Tod Goldberg has done it recently …) Anyway, I finally saw “The Hangover” and had to be careful to stifle guffaws to not wake the woman next to me. All I have to say is Bradley Cooper, call me. Soon.
I dozed for a while, noshed on cashew clusters, stayed hydrated, a bit too hydrated, and then didn’t want to wake anybody to go pee. Problematic. But I know now just how strong my bladder is, and it’s information that I’m sure will come in handy at some point.
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Staring out the window in the wee hours after some dozing. I assume these are the wee hours. I can’t tell being in this suspended state, floating along between hemispheres in an airplane where the glow of intermittent video screens dot the darkened cabin. A man snores behind me. The clouds float, charcoal over a black sea, and Orion shines over it all. I feel an affinity for Orion. He blazed away early mornings when I lived with my Lugg-dogg in Leawood, Kansas. He hung low in the southern sky, the feel of midnight hanging around him even at 5 a.m. By the end of my run, he disappeared as the sky turned cobalt, then robin’s egg blue. He stood over the desert, too, just outside my bedroom patio door, a colossus that the planes from Phoenix flew by to land at Palm Springs International.
Not everything is foreign here, not yet.