Travelogue - Philadelphia to London, June 2006
Being on a plane while angry is not the best combination. I was in coach class on US Airways. (As time had progressed, my old "boy"cott had fizzled. Though, I don't think that I had personally purchased tickets on the airline, I was not as militant anymore about my avoidance of the airline.)
I mention this because a week prior, I was in the Raffles Class on Singapore Airlines returning home. The 18 and 1/2 hour flight from Singapore to Newark was comfortable in my chair pod. Selections of Nintendo games, movies, travel shows and music were at my finger tips. Availing myself of the choices, I remembered that I watched a show about Queensland and I enjoyed seeing places that I had known inimately only a month ago: Cairns, the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree National Park.
I interrupt: As I'm on the train to NYC, I was jolting this text on a legal pad while next to me, an older man works on his thinkpad, drafting a memorandum on Liberia.
I was happy with the memories and wished I had visited the Gold Coast, went to Fraiser Island and traveled to the end of Far North Queensland. I made my notes mentally about my future return trip.
Going to Australia, I mused, was a life-long goal. I was there with someone I loved and had with him a common bond of always wanting to go there. We had some common experiences, too. He might have Sydney more under his belt than I due to his five months there, but Cairns and its environs were ours. The flying foxes in the palm trees were ours. The tropical nights overly warm but colded by fans were ours. Secretly try to feed the turtles in a creek in Daintree were ours.
These memories, though I share them, are only creations by him and me. They are events and recollections that no-one else had in common with him and me. They are whispers of musical phrases in the midst of a symphony.
I, however, wasn't there, in the beautiful tropical surreal world of Australia. I was cramped and warm in an envelope of anger and rage. So I stewed.
Only two says before did I found out that while I was above the earth traveling at 350 miles per hour, suspending from all gravity and grounding, with the thoughts of him -- his return to the States in six weeks and holding him and loving him -- keeping me calm and steady through my near day-long flight that he slept with an Australian.
Oh, when I found out, I yelled and spat out my fury. I ranted for hours. Literally, he paid for it. He, yes, he called me from Sydney when I cracked the code from our IMs. I still feel that it's the only thing he's paid for in terms of his dicking me.
Added to this, I moved the next day. Moving was more than just a chore. It was mourning. The apartment which my rommate found while I was on my southern-hemispheric vacation, albeit stellar, was new and not yet familiar to me. I didn't have the time to adjust to the new domicile. I realized that my life was more than just in flux -- it was foreign to me.
Doubly exhausted from the lack of sleep and moving, I poured myself into the flight from Philadelphia International to Gatwick. In this cramped and stuffy seat, I finally stopped to breathe. I didn't realize that I was just starting to feel all of the emotions that I didn't yet have time for.
I wish I could remember what the inflight movie was. I watched it and it was the key to my unlocking the kinetic energy of my sorrow. I bubblerred as I watched. The movie itself didn't move me, but it was the power of needing release. Once I could see my hand in front of my face from when the emotional and exhaustive dust settled, I keened like a loved one had died.
Looking back, I sometimes think that a loved one did really died.
I mention this because a week prior, I was in the Raffles Class on Singapore Airlines returning home. The 18 and 1/2 hour flight from Singapore to Newark was comfortable in my chair pod. Selections of Nintendo games, movies, travel shows and music were at my finger tips. Availing myself of the choices, I remembered that I watched a show about Queensland and I enjoyed seeing places that I had known inimately only a month ago: Cairns, the Great Barrier Reef and Daintree National Park.
I interrupt: As I'm on the train to NYC, I was jolting this text on a legal pad while next to me, an older man works on his thinkpad, drafting a memorandum on Liberia.
I was happy with the memories and wished I had visited the Gold Coast, went to Fraiser Island and traveled to the end of Far North Queensland. I made my notes mentally about my future return trip.
Going to Australia, I mused, was a life-long goal. I was there with someone I loved and had with him a common bond of always wanting to go there. We had some common experiences, too. He might have Sydney more under his belt than I due to his five months there, but Cairns and its environs were ours. The flying foxes in the palm trees were ours. The tropical nights overly warm but colded by fans were ours. Secretly try to feed the turtles in a creek in Daintree were ours.
These memories, though I share them, are only creations by him and me. They are events and recollections that no-one else had in common with him and me. They are whispers of musical phrases in the midst of a symphony.
I, however, wasn't there, in the beautiful tropical surreal world of Australia. I was cramped and warm in an envelope of anger and rage. So I stewed.
Only two says before did I found out that while I was above the earth traveling at 350 miles per hour, suspending from all gravity and grounding, with the thoughts of him -- his return to the States in six weeks and holding him and loving him -- keeping me calm and steady through my near day-long flight that he slept with an Australian.
Oh, when I found out, I yelled and spat out my fury. I ranted for hours. Literally, he paid for it. He, yes, he called me from Sydney when I cracked the code from our IMs. I still feel that it's the only thing he's paid for in terms of his dicking me.
Added to this, I moved the next day. Moving was more than just a chore. It was mourning. The apartment which my rommate found while I was on my southern-hemispheric vacation, albeit stellar, was new and not yet familiar to me. I didn't have the time to adjust to the new domicile. I realized that my life was more than just in flux -- it was foreign to me.
Doubly exhausted from the lack of sleep and moving, I poured myself into the flight from Philadelphia International to Gatwick. In this cramped and stuffy seat, I finally stopped to breathe. I didn't realize that I was just starting to feel all of the emotions that I didn't yet have time for.
I wish I could remember what the inflight movie was. I watched it and it was the key to my unlocking the kinetic energy of my sorrow. I bubblerred as I watched. The movie itself didn't move me, but it was the power of needing release. Once I could see my hand in front of my face from when the emotional and exhaustive dust settled, I keened like a loved one had died.
Looking back, I sometimes think that a loved one did really died.
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