The Lifetime Journey

Alright. Here we go folks! Day 1, the beginning, Genesis, ground zero. As of right now, I have flown 1 hour and waited to fly for 5 hours. The flight was on a little baby plane called a Dash somethingsomething or other. Let’s just say it was a glorified station wagon with wings. If I wasn’t already sleep-deprived from anxiety and last minute preparations, I certainly am now. 

I have another 5 hours in Toronto, and I don’t think I can leave the airport. =[ Even if I could, there’s no one here to say that it’s ok or not. And I’d rather risk not seeing the city than missing my flight. I am convinced no one actually works for the airlines here.

The Toronto airport is very nice though. Artsy-Canadian-y. There’s a life-size Moose with a uniform on. He’s now my iPod’s background. Go Canada.

However, whatever cute charm I had at Cleveland Hopkins, is gone now. Maybe it’s because I’m obviously American, or most people I see here are foreign themselves. Regardless, they are far less likely to humor me for whatever reason.

There is a flight leaving from my gate before me for Beijing. I’m trying to remember the little Chinese I’ve learned to listen in. So far here’s what I’ve gathered: Teen girl: “I don’t have……” ?????? I know, definitely putting those 4 semesters of Chinese to use.

This is a very unorganized and random post.

Blaerrgghhhha!

What is weirdest for me in all of this so far is the alone part of it. I don’t have anyone to talk to or explore with. I don’t know how many more times I can pace around the airport before someone calls security. I’ve never really traveled alone before, let alone flown. I realized that my ease at many things people fear comes from my need to be fearless for my loved ones. Weird. And so I find myself hosting a number of fascinating dialogues in my head as I attempt to entertain myself through the forced solitude found in crowds of strangers, self-imposed and enforced, of course. 

Why can I be mere feet from you, for hours, and we’ll never make eye contact, acknowledge the other is there, except to perhaps corral our baggage more closely. So strange, yet so familiar.

I want to see the city, but I don’t think I can leave. And I definitely had deja vu about this moment, and my regret at not seeing Toronto. Alas.

I am truly exhausted and can’t wait to sleep on the plane.

Love.

By Anne Stevenson

Rapture. rapture. rapture, it whispers to me. I hear it coming on the wings of rain drops as they cascade down my window panes. I am awoken with a start to discover that my blood runs warmer each day. It is neigh sunrise and yet I can feel its evanescent rays coalescing upon the air, drifting into my lungs and striking my skin. I have become eroded. With the soft tread of time my edges worn, my eccentricities bound, my internal monologues hindered by… everything. I write in a backwards fashion now. Rather than following the flow to my hands, I strike my hands with a hopes of rekindling the flow.

With each moment I draw closer to this precipice over looking an abyss into which I will soon jump. I know I will return stranger, but not a stranger to myself. I have been grooming my latent wings for some time now, and yet still feel so unprepared. I have but weeks, days, hours, until my departure and I will once again set my faith upon my muscles, hoping they are not too atrophied to work once more.

My life is about to change.

I am afraid, but only as an afterthought to my anxious excitement. I am mostly afraid of losing what I have, even though I know in the deepest part of me, that what I have to gain is so great I can not, and will not, let it pass by.

I have displayed a reluctance to allow my heart its own wanderings in the forested night. I have only allowed glances out of a window, or a solitary moment in an idle car. I do not know why I limit myself thus. Perhaps I feel as a foreigner where I was once home. I feel unworthy or too far removed to remember the wind ebbing around my flesh. And yet I can feel it now, mimicking the oceans steady heartbeat echoing all around my being.

I will soon alight though the wind and rain to seek my own rapture, slow and unannounced in a strange world, which I can already feel is much like my own.

Whispers of who I might become slide past my ear, almost inaudible through the commonplace din of our world.

I see clouded pathways to whom I might become.

The question I seek most is this:

How can I best repay my debt to the universe?

I have come from less than promising histories and yet I am so capable. I do not know why I have been spared, but I know that I must give back that unanswerable gift. There is something within me worth guarding, and I seek the best means to unleash it.

Perhaps it is my words, but have I anything to say?

Perhaps it is my actions, but what have I to do?

Perhaps it is my being, my pulsating life, but to what use do I put it?

How do I take the treasures buried deep within and make as much good as I can?