Out the door

I filled the bird feeders, shut off the breaker to the hot water heater, unplugged everything, said goodbye to the crows, locked up, and hopped the coach to St. John’s. We stopped about a half hour out of Goobies to check on a mail driver who had hit a moose and smashed in the entire front of the van. He was ok, somehow, and waiting for police to make the hours-long drive out to meet him. We had to leave him there alone with the dead moose.

Dropped off at the airport, I had about 8 hours to kill. I live here now, sitting in the terminal watching people come and go, eating protein bars and Diet Coke. I don’t feel anything. My suitcase was a matryoshka of other suitcases, with one pair of jeans and three tank tops in the middle. Almost everything I own is still in Hawaii, I’m just returning the bags so Leif can move to Scotland.

If this imaginary plane ever boards, it’s 6 hours to the west coast, then 12 hours overnight at the airport, sleeping on chairs because I felt broke and cancelled my hotel reservation. 1 hour to another west coast airport; 5 hours sleeping on different chairs. 6 hours to Hawaii. I’ll get in tomorrow night, wrecked. 

I brought my knitting and sketchbook and downloaded books to listen to, but I’ve just been sitting and staring. Travel exists in its own time, there’s no point trying to get out of it.

Notes from the liminal place:

The seating has shrunk again, and my knees now press the seats in front of me. The men on either side of me were spreading their legs as far apart as they could go, but not because they were assholes. Their femurs just wouldn’t fit any other way. They were tense the whole flight, trying not to tap me with their knees and elbows. I folded like a pocket knife and stayed still for 6 hours to help out.

At the midnight airport, I roamed around the terminals looking for a place to sleep. In a long deserted corridor lined with unused security carts, I found an unoccupied area filled with jumbled lounge chairs and long padded benches. There were rows of airport wheelchairs parked at the back, cordoned off in a dark area. Nobody was sitting there, but there were no signs to warn me off, so I went to the back of the room and laid down on a long cushioned bench. When I opened my eyes at 1:30am, two other women were sleeping on the benches around me. By 4:30am there were six women asleep under sweatshirts and airplane blankets. 10,000 years of instincts kept us all puddled together so we could sleep safely. People are cute.

I have a cup of tea, a breakfast sandwich, and 5 more hours before my next flight. I still don’t feel anything about this trip. 

A million hours later

Flew to Vancouver surrounded by kids coming back from summer camp with desperate young counselors who couldn’t figure out why all the kids on the list said “here” and raised their hand when called, but their head count was short by one. The cabin crew did not give a shit if they left a kid behind, they were shutting the doors on time and that was the camp’s problem. There was brief PANIC as the doors closed, but thankfully it was just a problem with the list and nobody was actually missing.

Last layover. My brain is failing. I need a shower. Lost my AirPods in International security, didn’t realize it until I had gone through customs and sat down to eat a $20 sandwich. Backtracked. Jumped up and down waving like an idiot outside the DO NOT ENTER doors at customs. Came in when the airport police officer waved me through to the customs agent, then walked in literal circles when she told me to go back where I came from first. Back to the customs line? Nobody was even in the line, so I stood at the entrance to it. “No, all the way back.” Wtf, ok, I walked all the way to the start of the empty line and walked through the maze to stand back in front of her again, confused. “NO, BACK TO SECURITY, ALL THE WAY DOWN THERE IN THE NEXT ROOM.” I slapped my forehead.

I have my AirPods, and bought a bottle of Wayne Gretzky maple cream bourbon in the Duty Free shop just because I thought it was funny.

10 more hours to go. They’ll have to scrape me out of my seat and pour me into baggage claim when we get there.

The last leg 

I laid down across some empty seats at the gate and napped on my cat-shaped pillow. I felt greasy and unwashed and old and fat, but when I cracked my eyes open there was a good-looking dad in his 40s looking at me like I was the Madonna of the Trash Heap. I checked to make sure a tit hadn’t fallen out of my tank top or something, but he kept throwing me sneaky glances like a teenager, smiling when I accidentally made eye contact, and suddenly I felt dewy-faced and tousle-haired and not-so-old and voluptuous. This was kind of annoying, actually, because it was absolutely unacceptable behavior from a married man with kids on his lap and a wife trying to engage him with travel logistics, but still - visible to someone age-appropriate and conventionally attractive? Maybe it’s not too late for a hoe-phase after all. This is not that day, though. Mind your family, horny man on vacation. 

When we finally boarded the plane to Hawaii, I was glad not to be seated near the family. I tried not to fall asleep, because it’ll be 9pm when we land and I still need to sleep the night, but I failed, and three hours blipped by. We’re making the descent now, and I’m starting to feel something. It feels like… I am going home after any other trip I’ve ever been on, and the past 6 months were a fever dream that wasn’t actually real.

… and a swelling rage.