1 Somewhere

There are clear blue skies everywhere now, as they should always be whenever you leave a place. A new adventure is beginning all around me, and so omens seem to align elsewhere (all at once), in order that the entire cosmos can ferry me through this marvellous conveyance. All journeys must begin somewhere. I am sat here, in transit, at Gate 51, waiting for a flight from somewhere to go somewhere else (it feels as if I have been here so often before). There is a poem by Walter de la Mare titled “Somewhere” where we are asked to wonder what ‘somewhere’ is and what it means to us. Through the rhyme and metre of each stanza, the poet reminds us that it makes no difference whether we go somewhere on foot, or in our dreams, there is an authentic somewhere meant for each of us to reach, “the somewhere meant for me.” These occasional pockets of time, glimpsed lapses of meaning, or just the sense of seeing ourselves slipping through the cracked fissures of our faith in everything – all this brevity becomes legitimised through the poem’s mapping of somewhere.

So here we are again. Waiting in a departure lounge. Hungry. Didn’t have the best of sleep. Woke up at 2.30am and again at 430am, worried that I’d sleep through my 5am alarm – but it went off anyway, on time and I got up and got ready. I made my way into the city to catch the first bus to the airport. It arrived on time (although the city was quiet, still asleep). Moving through the streets I arrived at the airport without really realising – it just appeared there on the left having sped through a blur of tail-lights, traffic lights and eternal stars hung across the silent Heavens. In the Terminal – the right Terminal – I checked in, dropped off my suitcase, was processed through the scans and security checks, passports no longer stamped at passport control but it still took an age to get through.

I bought a coffee (an espresso) and sat near my gate. The plane was announced as late and is now leaving in about 30minutes. Patiently waiting and watching. I am alone with my thoughts for the first time in a long time. And for the first time, in a long time, with all the preparation behind me, I am really up for this adventure. It feels like the first day of something new already. The last time I flew from here, I sat on a flight next to a man from Laos whose name was Cracker; the flight went quickly (eight hours), I read a little, slept a bit, spoke, talked, laughed, listened, ate and watched clouds morph and change colour before the memory of that flight still marvels at some guy from France who wore sunglasses through the entire flight and sung along loudly to the music he listened to (Lionel Richie’s “Dancing on the Ceiling” was a particular highlight for the Economy Class cabin aboard flight TG249). We all arrived on time, that time.

Moments earlier, I spoke to a couple from India. They had been here on honeymoon. They were worried about the announced delay and the possibility of missing their connection. There was no information, no signs. Eventually they went and found someone to speak to at the front desk. I watched them for a while and then they suddenly dissolved into the rest of us here sat waiting: all in a big hall facing boards of changing signs with so many other people. A family from Europe is now getting frantic about missing a flight. A man and a woman, with two small children are worried about missing their connection. The man speaks loudly to a member of staff for our flight and keeps pointing out of the high panes of glass stating, “The plane is there: on the tarmac.” People look. Some understand. Eventually his voice quietens, but stressed passengers make others doubt. We all recheck our connection times, arrival times, departure times.

The P.A. system sounds to make an announcement. A voice speaks but people nearby talk louder than the information is audible.

So I wait and wish this time away. I try to visualise the events so that they may manifest sooner: a queue will form and begin to move. Slowly. Next I will make the decision to gather up my things and walk towards the queue. The blur of boarding will then unfold. We will show our boarding passes, printed earlier, along with our passports (opened at the page to show our photograph). Once through these final checks, we will move again, onwards and towards escalators, stairs or ramps leading to the cabin deck. We’ll begin to pool, orderly, nervously knowing that the plane cannot leave without us now, but an eagerness will build to board before those around us, to find our seat before anyone else. To sit, click on our seat belts, close our eyes and wait for lift off. Emotions will swirl. The realisation of no return. We are leaving. We are departing. We will be departing. We will be airborne. No longer in transit. Until then, we wait.

In stillness the mind operates differently. Thoughts and memories arise from nowhere, sometimes flashbacks of the airport blur occur (like walking through the Duty Free lounge), sometimes they are specific only to travel. I recall one flight that blessed the voyage, crew and passengers just prior to take off. On a trip to Borneo, years ago, with Royal Brunei, once the videos had been shown to educate passengers about what to do in the event of a crash-landing, a lack of oxygen in the cabin or how to hold the brace position, a travel prayer (dua) was broadcast. The prayer gave praise and blessings to the Prophet before the name of Allah was invoked for our journey. The prayer asked the Creator to lighten the burdens and hardships of our passage, to bridge the distance of our journey, to be our Companion for the duration of the flight and to be Protector to those we loved and had left behind. It was subtitled in Arabic, Malay and English for all passengers to take comfort in. 

Another memory appears from the depths. Being in transit at Auckland. First by being struck at how genuinely friendly everyone was at the airport – from security guards, transit checks through to passport control. Everyone seemed to realise we were travelling and made the effort to take care of us. I bought a book at a shop, bought something to eat, sat down at a plastic table and then noticed a girl walking around the terminal with odd socks (no shoes in sight). After that – and I’m not sure if it had been my lack of sleep from the journey to be in transit – the airport became full of doppelgängers. There were people there who looked like people I knew (people I knew who could not be in Auckland); there were people there who looked like certain celebrities (plausibly, they may have been there, too – but I lacked the courage, and energy, to discover if it really was ‘them’). In the end I surmised I was probably becoming short-sighted, fatigued and just staring at strangers. In fact, the only other thing I saw with clarity was the generic (but appreciated) message next to my onward flight: relax. All other flights said Delayed, Departed or Boarding. But mine had said “Relax.”

And here I am, now, relaxed. In transit. Waiting. And time has ceased to be.

I am content being somewhere and nowhere; that somewhere, that Walter de la Mare, wrote about being “the Somewhere meant for me.” And true to the words of the poet, there is room for all of us in this Somewhere. At Gate 51, we are waiting to board our flight and there is room enough for all.

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