“Well I was doubling over
The load on my shoulders
Was a weight I carried with me every day
Crossing miles of frustrations
And rivers raging
Picking up stones I found along the way”
~ ‘Travelling Light’, by Mellon/Bannister/Byrd/Hindalong
from the album “Songs From The 23rd Psalm”, 2002
I have always enjoyed travel and have relished the blessing of reasonably frequent opportunity and means. I’ve been lucky enough to visit almost all Australian capitals, states and territories, and almost a dozen countries, and every trip offers something new. I’ve noticed a higher than normal awareness of the absurd when I’m travelling. It may have something to do with the inherent foreign-ness of the situation and environments one finds oneself in.
I recently had the opportunity to take Wonder Woman to visit family in North Queensland, and as usual, it was a wonderful and often bemusing experience. As is customary for us, the flights we could afford were in the very, very early hours of the day. Owing to having a night out far from home the evening before the flight, we chose to stay in a cheap hotel near the airport for an all-too-brief sleep before the bleary-eyed stagger to the airport. I booked and paid for the hotel online. At check in, I asked the bored-looking gentleman at the front desk if I needed to sign anything. He chuckled and said “No. We already have your money.”
I realised why he was so amused as soon as I saw the room. It was inexpensive, and still barely worth it. A spartan concrete box with a bed low to the ground, to match the ceiling. The bathroom was a portable toilet and shower all-in-one unit that you pretty much needed to back out of when exiting because there wasn’t really the space to turn around and exit forwards. Two large signs on the interior said “KEEP DOOR CLOSED AT ALL TIMES - STEAM WILL SET OFF FIRE ALARMS”. Surely there is a standard with respect to smoke alarms that says they at least should be able to discern between smoke and water vapour, hardly similar substances. It was a good thing we weren’t there to watch TV, because it was only a few inches wide and had a remote control with at least 63 more buttons on it than the TV had functions.
Long-term airport car parking is more than just a place to park your car. It is an opportunity for kind individuals such as you and me to generously line the pockets of the (no doubt wealthy) owner of a slab of concrete with very low overheads in comparison with what’s on offer. Surely owning one of these facilities is not much more than a license to print money? I realised that the car was staying in pretty much the same quality of accommodation as we enjoyed the previous night. We ventured on to the airport in plenty of time for our flight.
I fail to see the point of rushing to line up to be seated on a plane. There’s an inevitable collective surge of passengers as soon as the call for boarding is announced. I’ve never seen all this hurry result in anything but people queueing for longer than they need to in order to get past the airport staff in the terminal in order to queue further at the door of the plane. Then there’s the inevitable wait for people to stow their carry-on luggage and get themselves seated. My habit is to wait until the last person has checked in, stroll up to the plane and take my seat while all those who had previously leapt into action are now impatiently waiting for the plane’s departure, an event not scheduled for several more minutes at least.
What’s the rush exactly? It is allocated seating, right? Am I missing something?
Same goes for getting off the plane. Wait patiently for everyone to rush off the plane, lazily step up next to your fellow passengers at the baggage pick up and, in the end, wait 10 minutes less for your luggage than they do for theirs.
Awaiting a connecting flight, we wandered the long corridors of a domestic terminal, passing at least five identical newsagents/bookstores selling identical magazines and books. The further we walked, the more same everything appeared, like a traveller’s version of Groundhog Day. Perhaps the hour that we rose that morning finally caught up with me. Even coffee could not assuage that foggy feeling.
Just prior to boarding, we sat near a gaudily overdressed woman and her cheeky young son. She was furiously rummaging through all of her carry on luggage in a vain attempt to find their boarding passes, the young boy frequently interjecting unpleasantries and whining that they would miss their plane.
“I’ll smack you” she spat at him. I nearly volunteered for the job and hoped they weren’t sitting near us on the plane. They were not, despite finding the boarding passes at the last possible moment.
At our destination, almost every bag at the pick-up point had the same large, dull green utilitarian quality about them. Looking around I realised we were surrounded by soldiers, not a common sight in Australia. Turns out that a nearby military base was running exercises in conjunction with our American cousins (with whom we are not really related). I hoped all this exercising made our boys and girls fit for war. Or maybe I didn’t hope that at all, fatigue all but overtaking me. All the oddness and lethargy was mixing together in a kind of waking dream that was beginning to make me wary.
Our pick up was not there, not at all surprising considering the work it takes to organise four lively children. The wait was not long at all. Upon collecting our baggage, we stepped out of the terminal and into the warm sun and warmer embraces of a kind of second home. Here I found not just time away and rest, but most of all, one of the things I’m most grateful for in my whole life:
Sanctuary.
**To follow the On Writing Blog on Facebook, click HERE and click the "Like" button**
No comments:
Post a Comment