Over the Atlantic on British Airways flight #0178
from New York (JFK) to London (Heathrow).
It was touch-and-go whether or not this flight would actually fly. The Icelandic volcanic eruption about a week
ago threw grit high into the atmosphere.
Winds have carried that grit and debris to southern England and northern
Europe, and airports there have been closed for nearly a week. British Airways was particularly hard hit,
and they only just started running flights into and out of London last night.
I’ve been staying the past couple of nights in New
York with a long-time friend, Arlene. The New York stay was partly a
staging visit for the European trip, but I
also wanted to spend time with a good friend I haven’t
seen for more than two years. It’s
always such a pleasure to sit over a leisurely meal or coffee and just converse with
her. Even though we’ve been friends for
nearly half a century, we always have plenty to talk about, and the topics seem endlessly
new and interesting. It's a chance to share experiences and understanding in person, and I always feel as if I learn something when we get together. She, Dinah, Art, and Constance are the four
friends with whom I’ve always been able to have non-trivial conversations. And
now Constance is dead.
That first evening in New York, Arlene and I went to the
“Vagina Monologues” (a partly Spanish version) at a little cafe on the lower
East Side of Manhattan. It was partly
funny and partly serious and partly embarrassing. It expressed an overworked anger and pride
about the condition of being woman, particularly its sexual aspects. I might have enjoyed it more if I were
younger, but I was glad to have seen it, finally. It came to Spoleto (Piccolo?) in Charleston
several years ago, and I didn’t go then, although a couple friends urged me to
go.
During the day, I unpacked and reorganized my
suitcases, partly looking for some things I was afraid I had left behind (camera
battery charger, for example). I found
what I was looking for and was relieved, although I am going to have trouble
with the large suitcase (a rolling duffle) because the upper strap on it broke. I tried sewing it back, but it broke again
when the doorman tried to lift it into the trunk of the taxi for JFK airport.
I see this as the “last big trip of my life” – at
least my last big trip abroad. I, who
have traveled almost obsessively since that first joy of discovering
of independent travel. That was when I used money I had earned as a car-hop
at the Dixie Spot the summer I was fifteen to take a three day boat trip to
Niagara Falls from Detroit with a friend, Carol Schmidt (“Schmidty”), who was
then 16. We had an absolutely marvelous
time, running around together on the ship, seeing The Falls, riding under them
on the Maid-of-the-Mist, buying souvenirs with our own money, savoring our
amazement at things we had never seen before. The freedom!
Several older couples “adopted” us when they discovered we were on our
own, so we were not without protection.
We probably had more eyes on us (and on what we were doing) than if we had
been there with our own parents. Still, it
was a delicious feeling of freedom and possibility that I remember vividly to this day.
Travel has almost always rejuvenated my soul, as during
the Sweetbriar “Junior Year in France” (1956 – ’57), when I left home carrying a
heavy torch for D.M. that oppressed my spirit and returned feeling renewed,
happy and believing that anything was possible.
Since then, I’ve lived abroad for five years, in
four different countries, and have taken many trips to other countries, both during those stays
abroad and directly from the U.S. I really need
to compile all these trips and the countries I’ve visited. People ask me, occasionally, how many
countries I’ve been to, and I can’t tell them.
No comments:
Post a Comment