Chasing the Morning

This morning when got out of bed at 4:30 AM, I was convinced that I'm not anything close to being a real writer because try as I did, I could not muster up much of a coherent journal entry. But now I believe that might have something of a writer in me after all. Or at any rate, I have this compulsion, an irresistible urge to record on paper with words the events of my life as they transpire. And starting at 7:26 AM this morning when the taxi arrived, I just could not not write down everything. The result? A lengthy and detailed account of my day for anyone interested to read.

This morning I woke up very early indeed, first at 2:30, then slept for a bit, then again at 3:30 and could not go back to sleep, due to large amounts of excitement in regards to going home. My taxi driver came a wee bit before 7:30 this morning, and he was an excellent chap. 43 going on 44 with a birthday in just 29 more days, has been living in Edinburgh all of his life, thick and quintessential Scottish accent, completely bald, somewhat rotund, chatty and affable. He took the back roads to the airport to avoid rush hour, which was just lovely. The sun was casting a fresh, early-morning golden glow over the fields and behind the city and beyond the bridges and the ocean. We drove past the headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland – a massive building that used to be a mental institution. Once at the airport, I gave him all the rest of my pounds, and bid him farewell, and pushed my bags through the doors towards my check-in desk.

I was thoroughly impressed with all the security measures taken by the Edinburgh Airport. Definitely far more than any other airport I've been through – including the immigration official when I first came through and tried to get in the country without an address of residence for my stay. Right from the start, I was interrogated before checking-in by a gentlemen whose accent I unfortunately had a very difficult time comprehending. In particular, the question, “Do you own and did you pack yourself these bags?” gave me a good deal of difficulty, but the fourth time, he repeated it very clearly and slowly, and I understood. He even went so far as to put a security sticker on the back of my passport. Fascinating.

Security lines were long, but they went fast enough. They were rigid about the rules – pulling out more bags and hand-checking them than I've ever seen at an airport ever before! They pulled out my hunk of a black carry-on, which was, I noted, larger (and most likely heavier) than any of the other carry-ons. The security guard who pulled it out seemed to notice this fact as well, remarking that I must have a dead body in there. No wonder they pulled it out if that's what they thought. Apparently, the problem with my carry-on was the large ziplock of oil pastels and colored chalks that I had with me... So it went through security all by itself, and after that they were satisfied.

In the airport – first thing to see out of security is a huge sushi bar... with chefs making sushi nonetheless. Who eats sushi at 8:15 in the morning??

Strolling through the Edinburgh airport, my gate is gate 3A. Arrive at gate 3A just as disabled persons are starting to board. Impeccable timing. I have this horrible feeling that I'm about to return to the US of A. More people are holding blue, United States passports in their hands than are holding the red European Union passports. Phrases being loudly annunciated punctuated by the sound of chewing gum being chomped solidify the American vibes, “It just SUCKS, man, like seriously.” “When my phone rings, it barks! It's great in elevators!” Girls are wearing clothes that are decidedly not the color pink with the word PINK branded prominently across the fabric. Everyone speaks with an American accent with classic up-talk intonation. And tragedy! The airport announcements are given in English, then in Spanish, then in Chinese, then in...no French! I could cry. But still, I catch a word of French here and there, sometimes a UK accent speaks out over the crowd of Americans. But it's mostly Americans. Undeniably so.

Finally time for Zone 5 to board. Before beeping my boarding pass, I'm questioned again by security, “Have you bought anything since going through security? Has your luggage been unattended at any point since you arrived at the airport?” My boarding pass is beeped in and then two security personnel approach me, “Scuse me, ma'am, you've been randomly chosen for a security pat-down, body and suitcase.” More security measures? But I'm more impressed by the rigor than miffed at the inconvenience. Into a back room. Someone starts to check my body while the other goes through my luggage. It tickled like crazy. I tried my best to keep from laughing and squirming, but in a thick Scottish accent, “You're a bit ticklish, aren't ya miss?” Yes...more than a bit. So now they are searching through my suitcase full of books and McCropder kid art. “You don't travel light, do ya miss?” “Well, I have been gone for four months...” “Have ya now?? Four months, is that so? 'Ere in Edinburgh?” “No, France...”

Next destination: Seat 29F on United flight 7643 with hopes that a strong and kindly gentlemen will be willing and able to heave my 20 kilo carry-on into the overhead bin. There it is – seat 29F, and lo and behold I don't even need to go through my usual Struggle Dance using body language and grunts to indicate to the surrounding crowd that I could use a hand or two, for the gentleman in seat 29D offers as soon as I arrive. I warn him, “Thank you ever so much, be careful, it's terribly heavy.” and watch hopefully, a bit dubiously perhaps as this older and rotund fellow reaches down for my brick of a carry-on. But voilà. He hoists it up, pas de probleme. Super.

Being in the boarding zone 5 does have it's benefits, for once you get on the plane, it's time to go. This giant plane starts to wake up. I love the feeling of a completely stationary hunk of metal beginning to rev up for the journey across the ocean. It reminds me exactly of Smog, awakening from centuries of a deep sleep, power coming up from his belly and spreading to every particle until … TAKE OFF! The wheels come off the ground and we go up while the world drops down and the dragon is in flight.

Above Ireland... The beauty is breathtaking. The problem with traveling, at least in my case, is that the more you do it, the more you realize what you simply must see... the more you want to continue discovering the beautiful places of our planet. I gaze longingly down at rocky, wind-swept beaches, the magnificent blue of the ocean, miles of coast with waves visibly and powerfully washing up on the rocky crags. Oh it is glorious to behold and if I had a parachute, I'd jump out of this plane right now unhesitatingly and go sailing down through the clouds and onto the coast of Ireland.

The clouds – oh I love them! They are bathed in the glory of the new sunshine of the morning, light coming from the East. They are poofy, pristine, like a fairy-tale, like castles in the sky. The kind of scenery that makes you feel like you've jumped right into an episode of Planet Earth. I find John Rutter in the selection of music on the little airplane screen, gadget contraption, and listen as I look. The sky at the horizon is white blending into a strip of an almost unbearably radiantly bright blue that introduces the vast enormity of the sky. And now we fly West, always West. West and West and West, chasing the morning. Trying to catch up with the sunrise. I'm listening to 10,000 Reasons, Rend Collective Experiment... The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning, it's time to sing your song again, whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me singing when the evening comes.

Looking through the movies – there are so many of them – OH HAPPY DAY! THEY HAVE MARY POPPINS! And the dragon is being loud enough that if I sing just a wee bit under my breath, no one should notice. Plus, there isn't anyone in the seat directly next to me. At first I was disappointed by this arrangement – I had been so hoping for either a native French speaker or else a mom with a cute baby who wanted a break (that is the mom wanting a break, not the baby). But now I am happy, because perhaps I can sing along to Mary Poppins without disturbing my neighbors while we continue to chase the morning.

Chicken with spinach and rice, a salad, a bit of bread and a dessert (which originally appeared to be deliciously chocolate and sadly turned out to be some dense, moist apple-resembling grossness) was just served to me. 9:45 Scotland time, which means 10:45 France time and 5:45 AM Eastern Standard Time – my final destination! Not sure if I've ever eaten such a meal at 5:45 AM before.

I love Mary Poppins. I started watching it when the clouds covered the ocean thick and far and wide. After going to a museum filled with a great many convincing statues of sea creatures, I love to think about all the life teeming under me at this very moment in time... gigantic squids, fish of all shapes and sizes, sharks, whales, eels, sea cucumbers (ew), star fish, sea horses, sting rays... I wonder the total number of sea creatures I will have flown exactly over will be by the end of this flight. I stopped Mary Poppins to figure out on the flight tracker which body of land we were flying over only to now discover that the fast forward button goes about as quickly as playing the actual movie. Oh well, I suppose that means I can watch all the songs again. I hope the dragon has been loud enough to muffle my singing. Thankfully, the gent on my left has been watching movies the whole time, so I'm banking on this distraction to mean that he can't hear me. I'm skipping the part when they're at the bank. I detest that part!

Made it across the Atlantic. We're still chasing the morning, although the sun must be going faster than 524 mph, because that's how fast we're going, but we haven't gotten to the sunrise yet. In fact, the Sun in the East is catching up to us. We're hurdling West and West still, and it's still morning, but the air outside now looks more like late-morning than it does early morning. When we started, it was noon in Dubai, now the flight tracker tells me it's almost noon in the Caribbean. I see on the map that the sun is now rising over the Pacific Ocean. But still we chase the morning. We're above Maine right now now. It's impossible to see any land through the clouds. I imagine the dreary, cloudy, sunless, rainy day that it must be down there, and try to irreversibly solidify the image of sun and sun and SUN that does shine, always, above the cloud cover. It really does become quite a grand metaphor for life the more I think about it.

Well, I be in 'Merica now, waiting for my connecting flight at the Newark Airport. Feels like it too, my goodness. So much English sans Scottish accents coming from every direction, Annie's pretzels with greasy pepperoni dough blobs instead of boulangeries with baguettes and tarts and macaroons. As we flew down, I saw suburban houses with that ugly, plastic-looking siding, all lined up in rows upon rows and rows. Customs was a breeze – there was an airport personnel directing the passengers into the multiple lines. As I waited, he chatted with me – “This your final destination?” “Nope, Detroit, Michigan is!” “Awwww, I'm a Spartans fan...” “Umm, oh! Cool! I am indeed from Ann Arbor where the University of Michigan resides!” If you were trying to give me reason to despise you, it really didn't work....I don't think I even consciously realized until this moment in time that Spartans are Wolverine adversaries.

Baggage claim – the thrill of realizing that I've been to every single International city in this baggage claim at the moment! Frankfurt, Brussels, Paris, Edinburgh... Granted, I may have only been in the airports of the former two, but to be fair, I did walk outside the airport in Brussels to get to my plane.

Upon landing, I was absolutely parched, and after an unsuccessful quest for a drinking fountain, I bought myself a lemonade...just a bit more money for that than for a bottle of water. Absurd. I paid using a few euro pennies, but I had forgotten that here the sales tax is not included, so the lady gave me a very odd look when I gave her about 20 cents less than the total price she had stated. Remembering that they sometimes gip you with these sorts of things by putting in far too much ice and far too little liquid, I asked for no ice. I got a cup halfway filled with the frozen little cubes! Absurdities continued. All the signs are in English and Spanish making my quest for bilinguality a bit rough. As for the wifi, there isn't any except the kind you have to pay a whopping $7.95/day to use, henceforth I cannot post this blog post even though it is ready to be posted. Absurdities to the max.

But never you fear, my friends, I complain not! In actuality, I am vastly contented to be here, well, to be here in transit anyways, I would not be happy to be permanently here, that's for sure. There's a flight going out to Detroit at 1:20, in fifteen minutes. Sitting here for three hours will give the sun quite the advantage as I continue to try to chase the morning. Totally coulda made that flight too. But I can wait, and will wait, until my flight at 3:15 PM and I will somehow find entertainment in this drab little place. My impressions of Newark thus far have not been the best – rainy rainy rain, no color, nowhere near as interesting as the Amsterdam Airport, or any other airport, really. Very boring as far as airports go, actually. My clothes smell utterly disgusting, and I think I'll go change into my pajamas. Hope no one minds! My excitement has been evidenced thus far in song, dance, and lots of talking to myself and the world at large in French. Hope nobody minds that either.

Well this past week seems positively prone to travel problems. I'm currently stuck at the Newark Airport. For a very long time. My flight from Edinburgh got in half an hour early at 11:45, and my flight to Detroit is delayed by 2+ hours because the flight crew apparently isn't here. I'm so close to home and I want to go now! I'm afraid this will mean that not everyone can come to the airport – including Josiah who has to be at his orchestra rehearsal at 6:30! Very upsetting indeed. It is quite aggravating. I've been on the lookout for an adventure, for something excited or interesting, but have thus far been more or less unsuccessful. I did indeed change into my pajamas, and brush my teeth too. I'm on the look-out for anyone who needs a friend or wants to have a conversation, you never know, but so far I'm coming up dry. I read all the stories from Daniel to the Three Kings in my French Jesus Storybook Bible. I read some on my kindle. I listened to French music on my computer. I got a job offer for the summer from a lady who works with kids who have autism. She was impressed with my gap year. I think I might go listen to my favorite Reluctant Dragon story (even though that's normally sacredly reserved for the night before Christmas Eve only in the Wong Household...) since it's on my computer and it is ever so entertaining and since the next dragon I'm boarding does seem to be very reluctant indeed. Two more hours of waiting in Newark. 9:32 PM France time, 8:32 PM Edinburgh time, 3:32 PM EST with a flight to depart (I think...) at 5:30.

Now instead of chasing the morning, it'll feel more like chasing the evening...