Once a child, always a child

My cousin was kind enough to remind me the other day that spending six weeks with my parents would be the longest time I have spent with them since uni holidays – and even then I was working most of the day, weeding tomato paddocks – wonderful work in the 37 ish degree heat of the northern Victorian summer.

And apparently, in just a few days back in the parental fold there is very little distance between teenager Annalea and today’s Annalea – it’s interesting how quickly we can regress to our former, less gracious or compassionate selves in such a short time.

First night after travelling three days and being very confused about who, where and what time it was:

Mum: Now we won’t make any plans cause we know you don’t like to make plans.

Me: Excellent.

The next morning I hear whispering from the lounge room:

Dad: I wonder what time she’ll get up.

Dad: Will she want breakfast before going to the market?

Mum: I don’t know, ask her.

Dad: Maybe we should go for breakfast after the market?

Mum: She might be hungry before that.

Dad: Which café should we go to after the market then?

Me: Morning! Anyone for a vodka?

Dad: Do you want to have breaky now or after the market? Do you want something small or a big eggs breakfast? What do you want to do after the market? Do you want to go to the pool or beach?

Me: I thought I’d just have a vodka and see where the day takes me…

And over the next 2 days:

Mum: What are you going to do with your hair?

Me: I don’t understand the question.

Mum: Aren’t you hot in those boots? Do you have some nice shoes?

Me: I don’t understand the question.

Dad: What are you eating? What are you doing? Where are you going?

Me: Vodka.

Mum: Are you wearing that?

Me: Due to a serious case of swimmer’s ear caused by you letting me run wild and spend every day swimming in freezing cold rivers with treacherous currents, and the nights hanging my head out of cars speeding down long country roads like a crazed border collie – also your fault for not putting locks on the bedroom windows – I can’t hear you.

Mum: Well, your brother didn’t need locks on the windows.

Me: That’s ‘cause he’s boring!!!

Dad: You look beautiful. Except for the boots.

Me :/

Mum: Do you want to go and put some lipstick on?

Me: I don’t understand the question.

Of course I understand the questions, they want to see me and know that I’m here with them. They enjoy their roles as parents and it is wonderful to be spoilt and fussed over – they are very excited to have me here and I have been excited to get here. They want to show me everything they love about the place and how much they’ve made it a bit of a home – the oldies they get their fruit and veg from at the market on Saturday mornings, the café with the best iced coffee, Louis’ Bar; the smoky local where dad hangs out with his mates, the local supermarkets and their favorite lunch spots. 

And it's the wonderful familiar of watching dad cut up his fruit for his cereal with such concentration and precision, then holding it up: Look at that! And mum telling me stories about their neighbours and keeping me up to date with the news - which I never bother to watch. And both of them swearing at the computer. And of course we don’t get to be spoilt often or children forever so for now I will visit and meet and greet and eat, I will pop on some lippy, put my hair up and find some non-boots. Because there was vodka, soda water, limes and gluten free food in the apartment when I arrived. And because the novelty will wear off and then I can run rampant. As they also expect me to do as their child.  

Airport Love

Travel:

It means excitement, adventure, the thrill of the unknown. The thrill of possibility. The absolute pleasure in the out of the ordinary. It means perspective and wonder.

It also means airports.

Eighteen months after I boxed up my life and put it in storage that costs the equivalent of renting a house, I was again saying goodbyes.  Twice – on the island and in Victoria. Apparently practice does not make perfect, in fact there were even more tears this time and in unexpected moments – on a sweltering, small plane squeezed between people, in my coffee, on a beautiful bare chest – unexpected but still delicious – driving to dinner, in my friend's front yard… . But despite feeling like my heart was breaking again – and again – I knew once I was on that plane I’d be A-OK.

And I was.  I love that moment when you have checked in, gone through the beepers, without your pants falling down cause you have to take your belt off, and it’s just you and the joy of a coffee, a new magazine, and MAC. Bought the coffee, magazine and a new lipgloss (even though it is a total waste of time – I keep buying MAC in the hope it will transform me into a glamorous, well groomed woman and then never wear it..) and was there on the verge of the world and everything in it. For me it is a real moment of absolute freedom, sad as I am every time I leave – and it’s getting harder – I shed it all as I walk through duty free towards the gate to my new moment.

I often get so relaxed at an airport that I can get to my gate perilously close gate shutting time– I don’t need to be the first one on the plane like most of the population, I’m happy being last avoiding getting hit in the head with hard case carry on and sweating in overheated cabins while people squeeze past you to their seats. And realizing you have to pee as soon as you sit down and are completely trapped by a hundred other passengers clamoring past. So I leave it a bit later and have had a few close calls. But it’s all about the experience, and I can happily while away a couple of airport hours.

Once on the plane it’s less fun- I can’t sleep on planes and the fuck-arsed knee shots pain all over the place after half an hour of sitting down. I’m always hungry and thirsty and wriggly. This time, however, after 20 or so years of travelling I finally caught on to the overuse of sleeping tablets. I got some from an easygoing doctor on the island last year when heading to (hair flick, sip of drink and pause…) Guatemala. She told me to start with a quarter and work up to one if that didn’t work. It didn’t, I managed about 4 hours sleep in 30 of travelling and was still grateful for getting that much. This time after dinner and a movie (the perfect plane date) I popped 2 and it was adios Australia, hello Dubai. 8 ½ hours of interrupted but pretty good sleep- more than I generally get in a bed.  So got off in Dubai feeling ridiculously sane then topped it off by having a shower.

Dubai airport doesn’t have enough seats. Thus despite its glamorous, modern décor, there are people lying and sitting on the floor everywhere making it look like a post festival backpackers’. But I felt great – clean, rested and even though I had to drink my coffee on the floor tiles near the café and couldn’t find anything non-gluten to eat it was all pretty easy. I even bought a new MAC eye shadow, which I will never wear and which made me late to the gate. It has been said before – I do not learn from mistakes.

However, I made it to the gate and onto the second leg of the journey – 8 ½ hours and I’d be in Portugal. Except that 1 ½ hours later we were still sitting on the tarmac. I was half way through a movie and not able to concentrate because a) it was such a shit movie – the latest Underworld – not even great special effects, vampires and werewolves fighting viciously and Kate Beckingsale in leather could redeem one shit bit of it – and b) because I knew I was going to miss my connecting flight from Lisbon to Faro where dad would be waiting for me. Shitballs. I texted him and let him know and figured there was nothing I could do so I’d just have to watch two more shit movies. 18 months on an island and movie starved and nothing decent to watch..

So I got off the plane with 20 minutes to catch the connection, an Emirates lady was waiting with my boarding pass and told me to run to gate 19. Cool I thought, despite inactivity and having to avoid a billion stupid rolly bags, I ran. She didn’t mention the line up at passport control, which didn’t move for ten minutes. Fuck that, I created a bit of a drama and got through my own special line with a beautiful, friendly man that I could barely appreciate as I was so close and still too far from that stinking flight. More running to the x-ray thing where I beeped because I forgot to take my bling off and a poor woman had to feel me up while I was sweating like I’d just run 10 k’s in the afternoon during wet season on the island. Yuk.  More running to finally get to gate 19 where there was absolutely no one. I missed it by ten minutes. Shoulda kicked up a stink at passport control as soon as I got there. So here I am with a pass to the Emirates airline lounge which is all very businessy and there dad is doing a bus tour of Faro while we wait 6 hours till I can get the next flight and then head to Lagos together.

Airports are not so much fun at this point. I should go into the city but am in that dazed and confused point in jet lag where I’m likely to leave my passport or wallet or sanity in some bar somewhere. I’m too tired to read and there’s no life saving massage spots like Bangkok. The urge to drink a lot of wine from the cool wine vending machine (free) is strong. The words are blurring on this page but I figure it’s one way to stay awake. I have no idea what time it is here or at home and when someone asked me where I had come from I couldn’t remember. Bathurst Island – Darwin – Torquay – Melbourne – Dubai- Lisbon…

In 5 hours I will be back on a plane and in about 8 I’ll be in Lagos ready to collapse. Pleeeeease don’t let me fall asleep and miss the flight! Pleeeease let me be able to string a sentence together when I see dad! Pleeeease let me cankles go away by the morning so I can finally go for a swim at the beach!! I still feel free but also very wilted..a tired, dirty, blur-eyed kind of free. Best head off to look for a good coffee and some duty free MAC. 

In transit.

Because all good things come to those who wait.

And grit their teeth and

dig fingernails into palms

and scream and cry inside their heads

and just try to remember to breathe.

To those who spend all energy trying to hope

that there will be a moment, soon

better than the last one, better than this one.

I have been running away for so long and I’m so tired of it.

The anecdotes and jealousy in other people’s eyes

as I drop in to move on

is not enough.

Perhaps never was.

But I don’t know what else to do,

how else to be something that is not a funny story,

a pack with my life in it,

a goodbye hug,

a fleeting, transitory blink

in the lives of the people I love

and need.

And leave.