India, Day 2 - The lonely way to travel.
I have a love/hate relationship with transatlantic air travel. I like having nine hours to relax, but I dislike doing it in a metal tube filled with recycled air.
I like movies, but I dislike four-inch screens.
I enjoy conversations with new people, but planes always carry the threat of a seatmate whose bulk occupies both his own seat and part of mine. Worse yet, I've previously been caught next to talkative sad sacks, and with nowhere to run or hide, they depressed me with their life stories for hours at a time.
All that said, I generally enjoy the experience of air travel, even flying coach. Even at its worst, flying gives me dedicated time to catch up on some reading. Post-college, reading has taken on a new significance, because I finally have the luxury of choosing my own books. Based on the recommendation of a friend, I chose to bring a book on the trip that was very, very special: Shantaram, by Gregory David Roberts. Set in India during the 1980s, there was little difference between what was on the pages and what I saw firsthand in India every time I put the book down. If you have not read it, I highly recommend that you do so, sooner rather than later.
Aside from a reading and some intermittent movie-watching, my flight from Miami to London was uneventful. I managed to sleep a little bit as well, which always helps kill time. Someday I'll learn to take some Tylenol PM every time I fly, so I can just go right to sleep and be blissfully unaware of the passing time. After nine hours, I touched down in London early in the morning and was met by a familiar sign.
As I entered the terminal, following the familiar path through the "B Gates" in the international terminal, I grinned for a couple of reasons. The first reason was the knowledge that I would be returning to Britain at the end of my trip, and for the first time, I would actually get out of the airport and see England itself. As many times as I had connected through Heathrow, I had never actually set foot on English soil.
My second reason for grinning was the sight of several information screens held hostage by my old arch-nemesis, the Blue Screen of Death. I had no idea the old blue screen still afflicted modern computer systems, much less in airport terminal displays, but there it was, big as life.
As I said, it was early. Early enough to eat breakfast, although my body clock was so confuzzled by the time change that I might have actually been craving lunch or dinner. This is one point of my travel recaps that will remain problematic. On a good day, I am hopeless at processing numbers. Dramatic time changes and long flights exacerbate this weakness and make it even harder for me to remember details that aren't logged in my journal or with photographs. Details like exact times.
Where was I? Oh yes, breakfast. Or, "brekkie," as they say in the UK. I love that term. "Brekkie." Fun to say.
One of my favorite things about England is, honestly, the food. I don't know why England's traditional fare has been the black sheep of world cuisine for so long, because I find it delicious. Traditional British food is certainly simpler and less magazine-ready than, say, French or Italian cuisine, but that is actually what I love most about it. There's been a renaissance in British cooking in recent years, and top-tier gastronomy is dramatically changing the modern opinions regarding British cuisine, but I will always be a fan of the classics. From the delicacies and to the pub grub, it is simple, hearty fare, always savory and always satisfying. Especially the traditional English breakfast. Eggs, sausage, bacon, beans, tomato and potatoes. I can't think of a more comforting eating experience.
Breakfast moved to the top of my action list, I entered Giraffe, had my brekkie (I love that word) and a cup of good coffee. The repast over, I sat in the atrium of the terminal with my journal and wrote. As I got still and focused on the blank page, I became aware of an odd feeling. The last two times I had flown--including the last time I had gone through Heathrow--I had been with friends. I was retracing the same path to India, but I was doing it alone.
Alone. That's a naughty word when you're traveling. I've traveled alone plenty of times, and had fun doing it, but after several trips in a row with other people, I missed the company. I missed them badly, in fact. I have to confess that my trips to India aren't just mission trips. Selfishly, I look forward to the chance to spend ten days at close quarters with good friends from another state who I don't see at any other time during the year. And now I was doing the India thing again, but they weren't there with me. In the film The Third Man, Orson Welles' character, a sociopathic gangster, says from atop a ferris wheel: "Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?" In that moment, tired and listless and with no one to talk to, I felt like a dot.
This was the first of several such moments that I had during the course of my journey. When I was actually in India, I returned to several places where I had served on earlier trips. Coming back was strange, because the paradigms were so drastically different. Whereas the first time I went to this or that place, I was with friends, and often arrived there after a bus ride filled with conversation, laugher and even the occasional song. On this trip, however, I visited these places as the "silent partner" of various hosts, with almost every word out of my mouth requiring translation into Hindi or a local language before they could be understood. Having such strong memories so far from home, and even in a place like Heathrow, was a new and surreal experience, made slightly depressing by the removal of all the familiar and positive emotional associations. It almost felt like I had lost something, or someone.
In this incredibly positive state of mind (irony alert!), I sat in Heathrow and journaled my thoughts onto paper. My plane left in the late afternoon, and before departure, I also translated my mild sadness into a bit of emotional eating by buying a cappuccino and a bar of dark chocolate for an early dinner--my last Western indulgence before committing myself to India for six weeks. That decision has not gone down in the annals of "Steven's Personal Best;" to the contrary, the assault of milk and sugar on my stomach, unaccompanied by any other solid food, made the flight uncomfortable and set me up for a very tired landing in India.
My re-entry into Incredible India will be covered later this week. I am slowly realizing that my writing consecutive entries as long-form narratives is a little too time-consuming, so you may look forward to shorter but more frequent entries in coming weeks. Stay tuned!
India, Day 1 - Goodbye is always the hardest part.
This is part one of my recap of my forty-day journey through India. Some entries will be short photo essays, others will be more prosaic, long-form narratives. This first one is more along the lines of the latter. Enjoy.
"So, when do you leave for India again?"
"In about four hours."
Every trip is bookended by goodbyes, first to the people you leave at home, and later to the people you meet while traveling. I hate goodbyes, and this day was to be full of them. I love traveling, but only in the middle.
The night before I left for India, I didn't sleep well. Even though my day's schedule began early, I got up several hours earlier than was necessary, because I simply wasn't resting well, and laying in bed rolling back and forth seemed a greater waste of time than getting up and pacing back and forth on my feet. As there was a marginal possibility that my family would finish construction on our new home in my absence, I rose up and got dressed amidst a landscape of stacked boxes containing all of my worldly goods, which I had packed in anticipation of the possible move. The environment drove home every aspect of the idea of "leaving home," and for a brief moment I felt like I wasn't coming back. Once I had my clothes on, I had nothing left to do. My bag and check box were both packed, double-checked and by the door. Yes, I packed six weeks' worth of clothing in one backpack, my Monsoon Gearslinger. I pack light and travel light. I anticipated the inevitability of my buying gifts or a some new shirts along the way, and a packable duffel bag, reduced to a six-inch disc of fabric when collapsed, dangled from the clip of my backpack. Sadly, my own efficiency had left me with too much time on my hands; the morning dragged on forever. I was also experimenting with intermittent fasting at that time, and as such I didn't even have breakfast to kill a half hour.
I did a lot of pacing until I called my dad to say goodbye. He was out on a business trip to Washington D.C., and I wouldn't see him again until I arrived home. Afterward, I left at 7:00 to meet my friend, Jeff, for coffee and a book swap. He had lent me Lucifer's Hammer, and I wanted to return it and loan him my copy of The Four Hour Body before I left town. We only had about forty-five minutes to chat, a restrictive time for two people with a tendency toward motored-mouthing, but we did the best we could with the time we had. But upon saying goodbye and exiting the Drowsy Poet, my next stop wasn't the airport; far from it, in fact. An associate pastor at my church had passed away that week, and I wasn't about to miss his memorial; international flight be damned.
The loss of Pastor Mike Dekle was a blow to our church and the community at large. Mike wasn't just a gifted administrator, he was a devoted husband and father and a great friend to many people. He and I weren't very close, but I saw all four of my grandparents succumb to terminal illness, and I was very sensitive to Mike's own battle with cancer, and I wanted to support his wife and son during the service. In addition to supporting the family, the service allowed me the unforeseen opportunity to see the members of my church one final time before I left town, as well as a number of other old friends from other churches in the area. The service was a celebration of a well-lived life, and the reception gave me a chance to say a few final goodbyes and pray with friends.
After the service, my mother, sister and I went to one of our favorite restaurants, Siam Thai. It might sound funny, eating Thai food before going to India, but I honestly love Asian cuisine, whichever region it hails from. Siam Thai is also a family favorite, and I wanted one last opportunity to splurge on something familiar and well-loved before leaving home. Several plates of chicken and bamboo shoots later, my mother and I had coffee at a The Bad Ass Coffee Co. while my sister attended her voice lesson. When the lesson was over, we regrouped and the three of us went to the airport together.
In the airport restroom, like a scene out of Burn Notice, I changed out of my jacket, trousers and tie and put on a lightweight khaki shirt and a pair of Magellan cargo pants, emerging from the lavatory looking, well, like someone bound for India. India was (and at the time of this writing, is) in the throes of monsoon season, and I had purchased several new athletic shirts and a few pairs of fast-drying pants for trip, all in accordance with a self-imposed rule of "pack no cotton." I would love to travel the world attired like Indiana Jones or Josh Bernstein (I even have the hat), but practicality often dictates otherwise.
Clothes changed, there was still time to kill before I needed to go through security, and I re-entered the limbo of the early morning. I sat with my mother and sister in the terminal, and we passed a few minutes in uneasy silence. There really wasn't much to say. We're an emotional bunch, and I didn't want to cause any unnecessary strain by speaking too much. In the context of a year, seven weeks isn't a terribly long time, but it's still a respectable period of time to be apart from loved ones, especially when I would be making so much of the trip alone. We talked a little bit, here and there, but I was honestly relieved when the time finally came for me to put dignity on hold and pass through security.
The actual goodbye was still hard. I hate leaving people at the airport; it reinforces the separation before it even begins.
After the last hugs and kisses were exchanged, I shouldered my Gearslinger and went forward. The exact protocols of TSA screenings change a little bit each year, but I stay one step ahead by keeping all of my change, toiletry carry-ons and phone in plastic bags in my pockets until I'm through the screening area. It's a practice that saves me the trouble of rummaging around in my backpack while ill-tempered fellow travelers urge me to hurry up. As much as possible, I like to design my circumstances to stay relaxed. It works pretty well, so much so in this case that a female flight attendant, seeing my buzzed hair and single, compact bag, asked me if I was military, because she was unused to seeing any other group of young males be so polite while going through security. Plus one for Southern manners.
Once through security, I boarded the plane.
The plane flew.
The plane landed.
I found myself in Miami International Airport, with a long layover and, again, very little to do. I wandered through the terminal, marveling at the sameness of every shop. I made a few phone calls home, speaking once more to my dad before I crossed the threshold into the realm of international phone charges. My father runs his own business, and with the added pressure of handling a lot of his own contracting in the construction of our new home, he had been unable to see me off at the airport himself, and it was important to me to speak to him one more time.
When dad and I were finished speaking, I hunted down a coffee shop and bought a cup of green tea to chill out with while waiting for my flight. It was a long trek--the international terminal in Miami rambles on interminably. On the way back, I passed a heavyset black man on the concourse, and he hailed me in a thick Caribbean accent. It turned out that he was from Haiti, and was passing through Miami on the way to visit family. He was having trouble finding his gate in the massive terminal. It so happened that I had seen where his gate was located on my way up from my first flight, so I walked with him for a while and took him to where he needed to go. He summed up the airport with a single sentence: "Miami's just too big, man."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
My Haitian friend at his gate, I made the hike back to my own gate (tea still in hand!) and gave Jeff a ring to tie up the loose ends from our abridged conversation of the morning. Jeff has also served in India; that was actually where we first met and became friends, and that left us with plenty to talk about before I left to go back for an extended period. Anyone who has been to India will testify that it is a hard country to adjust to, between the cultural differences and the sheer frenzy resulting from a population of 1.2 billion people, and Jeff and I enjoyed a few good jokes as to the challenges facing me upon my return. As we spoke, the call came over the loudspeaker: it was time for my section to board the plane.
I finished with Jeff, shouldered my bag once again and boarded the plane. It was late.
Next stop: London.
