Traveling with others is a great luxury

Or perhaps, more precisely - traveling with loved ones is a great luxury. The thought strikes me as I wearily wend my way through the winding line towards Security Check for the umpty-umpteenth time ever. It is close to 11 pm on a Wednesday night and the airport sounds like it's groaning, it's walls heaving in efforts to simultaneously suck in and spawn more people than ever before. There is the usual feeling of barely-controlled chaos as people lurch from check-in to security check to boarding gate wait to actual boarding and seating. Each stage fine-tuned to progressively stripping away anonymity, privacy, personal space and dignity until all that's left is a quivering bewildered human organism just eager to comply and be on his way without trouble.

But amidst all this, I can see some people that are apparently unaffected. They seem in relatively good humor, and are even smiling. It is inexplicable at first. Then I see the pattern - these are all people traveling with someone they know, someone they love. That is what lets them create little cocoons of blissfulness, these small pockets of peace. A mother with three children, the kids playing a little game of mini-tag in a playing-field circumscribed by their carry-on bags. A boy perched on a large suitcase, precariously balanced as his father (or uncle) gently pushes him towards the gate. A couple smiling, each holding a handle of a large bag as they trot along in perfect unison, perhaps it contains a body? A family of many, sprawled across several chairs, murmuring to each other until one or the other can't take it anymore and calls out loudly, upon which they all laugh uproariously, it is a great joke and it takes a while for them to quiet down again. They seem happy, as best as they can be under the circumstances. Or perhaps I am falling for the "grass-is-greener-on-the-other-side" syndrome...

For on my side of the grass, there are people traveling individually. Struggling with their bags, juggling their anxieties for the journey ahead with the attachments and associations left behind. Clad mostly in business attire, armed with cellphones, Blackberries, iPods, laptops, sound-deadening headphones, mini-DVD players, portable video game devices, magazines and finally, (the ever-so-humble!) books. Everyone is well-equipped to stave off boredom, to fight ennui and yet no-one really looks like they're having any kind of fun, for sure! So it is with me, also. Here I am - trudging along in a studious trance, nibbling thoughtfully on a muffin, sipping a silently cooling coffee. Watching my bags, the departure gate, my passport-wallet-tickets all the time. Just another cool character in mildly rumpled attire (a shark in a suit? Hardly!). An enigma of departure. It has been this way for close to fifteen years.

I think I must find out what the other side feels like, eh? Before its too late...before I miss the bus, oops sorry the plane...
:-)

In Bruges

In Bruges, the movie

Why does In Bruges creep up and grab you?! Initially I dismissed it as a typical lightweight hitman flick - the guy-flick (as opposed to the chick-flick!). But after encountering it on a transcontinental flight, I was motivated enough to rent it for a couple of days. It was entertaining, snappy dialog, two hitmen and the picturesque locales of Bruges in Belgium. And the ephemeral, ethereal presence of Clemence Poesy, alongside the hitmen (childishly thuggish Colin Farrell and the more worldly introspective Brendan Gleeson) and their boss (the magisterially, certifiably psychopathic Ralph Fiennes). 

Personally I think it works, mostly because of the contrasts - between the characters and their calling, between the lady and the thugs, between gossamer dreams  and harsh messy reality. Also between the picturesque historic old neighborhoods now festering with drug pushers, hookers and hold-up artists on the one hand (the predators) and hapless blundering tourists on the other (the prey). 

It also makes me put Bruges on the To-Visit list!

Death of a Japanese maple

My Japanese maple died today. I killed it, delivering the coup-de-grace as I hacked it's still-tough branches, stem and roots into pieces small enough to be stuffed into garbage bags along with the soil that nurtured it. I felt sad, even though it was a plant after all. Why do people say that? I felt attached to it, enough to feel that I'd let it down in some way. I think somehow that I contributed to it's death - even though I was traveling the week it contracted what appeared to be some sort of leaf rust, a fungus that overwhelmed it's delicate mint-green mini-maple leaves eventually. I did try to keep it going, and in doing so I used up a couple of bottles of fungicide. But to no avail - it finally just gave up. I don't know if its a metaphor for events taking shape in my life, or whether it's a portent of things to come in nature. Or perhaps it doesn't really mean very much at all - a plant that grew green and happy, then went spotty brown and finally drooped and died.
But I will miss it for sure - as I sit in my chair, just as I sat in the past - savoring the setting sun filtering through those delicate mint-green mini-maple leaves as they nodded contentedly in the gentle evening breeze.