Sylvia's Journal

I lost all track of time of day as I hop scotched in 6-hour flight segments across the globe in an easterly direction, swallowing whole hours at a time. I have to take pills at bedtime but I can’t figure out what is bedtime. This is when you realize that time is an abstract and fluid concept and not the hard and unbending resource I take it for, sometimes obsessively, when I am at home, fixed in one time zone. It’s my second night in a plane. Or is it actually night? Dubai airport is as busy as any downtown at lunch hour, with people from all corners of the world carting their heavy (too heavy) hand luggage around and accumulating ever more ‘Win 1.000.000 (somethings)” filled plastic bags that entice you to buy raffles for a fancy car that you can touch right there in the duty free shopping area – as if there is much duty in this part of the world (no personal income tax and, as advertised, the lowest tax rates in the world).

I passed through Holland incognito, apologies, I did not call anyone. I will do that on my way back. I was trying to get into the mood for my next assignment which is a little loose, the final agenda not quite established. It’s a ‘winging it’ sort of assignment I’ve decided when the preparations didn’t quite do the trick.

The plane to Dubai was half full, as the one to Amsterdam was. Still, it was my luck to be in one of the few rows that had three people squeezed together, a huge man in between me and a grandma from Vancouver. He asked for an aisle seat which he got promptly (and to our great delight). His big arms had spilled over our common arm rests; eating our dinner would have been tricky for all three of us.

Grandma Vancouver is visiting her daughter, husband and their two year old child and is excited about having the toddler to herself for two full weeks. I am sure mom is also excited about that. Being in Dubai, in a warm place is a bonus; Vancouver has been unusually wet and snowy this year. It’s a nice winter escape, 68 degrees as we land at about midnight.

The flight to Dhaka was full in economy class and all I could get was business class (sigh!). The best part of this is access to Emirates terminal 3 business class lounge which is a city in itself, serving elaborate meals, cooked freshly by chefs you can see at work behind glass. There is Lebanese mezze, poached and smoked salmon, pastries, finger sandwiches and even a real restaurant to take your plate to, and never a bill presented (and all this in the middle of the night). I had to wait three hours before boarding my flight to Dhaka which is scheduled to leave about 4 AM. I killed the time with a shower, blogging (there’s so much to write about), dinner, reading the New Yorker from cover to cover and watching people. I find it a bit more difficult to make up stories here, especially about the women who are entirely wrapped up, giving me no clues about a possible story.

I am frontloading my blog. I have no idea whether I will have any access to the internet after we take off from Dubai; hence the three entries in 24 hours and then possibly nothing for a while.

I could spend days at airports, just observing people and then writing about them, making up stories. When I was little my parents told me that I should not make up stories about people based on how they looked or behaved – so when I first started to violate this rule that parent tape went off in my head and I felt guilty. I was travelling at the time with my colleague Michael who was my first mentor in organizational behavior. He died many years ago and my big regret is that I never thanked him for the important role he played in my professional life. We travelled together to Lesotho and spent hours in the Lesotho Sun’s restaurant spinning stories about our fellow hotel guests. We would make up such outrageous stories that we’d have tears running down our cheeks from laughter. It felt so naughty to do that and yet it was so much fun.
Now I am spinning these stories on my own but I am always thinking of Michael when I do this. It’s much more fun to do with someone else. Here are some made up stories about the people who crossed my pass in Schiphol’s KLM lounge.

There is an intriguing couple entering the lounge just in front of me. He’s British, pink skinned and ugly. I rarely use that adjective to describe a person but it fits him. He is in his sixties and has drunk too much all his life (it’s that red dimpled nose and the blotchy face). He’s also been out in the sun most of his life and his skin is wrinkled like a prune. The skin on his face lies in thick folds over his skull, I’ve never quite seen anyone like it, that’s why he features in the first story. She, by contrast, is young, black and beautiful, probably in her late twenties. I wonder, what’s the attraction? A ticket out of poverty? Money? Love? Sex? (The latter is hard to imagine, I shudder). I imagine they met at a bar in some provincial capital in Africa, where there is not much to do other than work, drink and dance (a Bend-in-the-river kind of place). He told her stories about his homeland and she was looking for a way out of early marriage and dreading to become like her unhappy mother. Maybe he deals in diamonds. He’s going to introduce her to his relatives in the UK.

Another couple walks in; they are in their late sixties, maybe seventies. He’s rather nondescript but she is a striking presence; maybe because she is very tall, taller than her already tall husband. I guess they come from Minnesota. She wears a man’s shirt several sizes too big and pants that are held with a ropey belt over her hipbones that jut out visibly. She looks fragile and worried; her body looks tired and used up. I wonder what her story is – sick? Dying? I imagine that her husband is taking her on a trip around the world. But she is paying for it because she worked as a lawyer until she got sick and invested her earnings wisely. He was a country doctor but cannot afford the liability insurance anymore and quit; the timing was right and he became her caretaker. Since she is dying they have decided to use up their money in this one final trip with stops in all the places she has dreamed about while she was still healthy and working all the time. I hope they make it and wish them Godspeed. But then I find out they are both members of the Hemlock Society and have a plan in case they survive the trip. This is unlikely since they also have a plan not to. They make a handsome couple, despite her protruding bones.

Across the lounge is another couple that draws my attention. She is talking incessantly and loudly on her cell phone so we can all follow the conversation. This is how I find out she is Dutch. She has a Hermes scarf draped with calculated nonchalance over her shoulders. I can tell from the way she dresses and the blond hair that she spends a fortune on beauty but she can’t hide that she is aging, in her early fifties maybe. I don’t know if her husband is Dutch because he never opens his mouth. He looks like he could be her father but somehow I know he is not. He comes from a long line of patricians, with lots of money and style that doesn’t need to be bought as it comes with the genes. They always travel first class, or business if there is nothing higher. That’s why they are in the lounge. She’s at home here. I wonder again about the attraction (the possibilities are always the same). Something keeps them tied together until death (looking at him this maybe soon). Maybe she is speeding things up by slowly poisoning him, adding one small pill to his already full pillbox, every day. He is too smart for her and has of course noticed it but he keeps quiet because he doesn’t want to make trouble (his kind of people don’t do that). He has been putting the pills in the big spider plant by the window of their (his) old family mansion on a canal in Amsterdam – the plant is slowly dying. He is not surprised of course and she doesn’t notice. He is celebrating another birthday next month. They are travelling to Peru.

A young girl who looks like one of those Eastern European gymnasts who dominate the Olympics sits with an older man. He can’t be her dad because they don’t look at all like each other. And since I don’t expect kidnappers to sit in frequent flyer lounges he must be her gymnastics coach. He has the body of an athlete, well built, muscular with short blond hair, a grown up version of the archetypal Hitler youth, only the red kerchief is missing. I guess they are on their way home from a gymnastic event and she did not do well which is why they are not talking much together. She has disappointed him (and he her I suppose). She knows it and sits with her knees drawn to her chest, listening to the music on her nano, wondering how she is going to handle the disappointment from her mom and dad in Belorus, who have sacrificed everything for her success and will know by tonight that all was for naught. She will pick up the violin next, find a Chinese teacher and try to become a champion that way. Her coach will find another promising young thing and try again.

An older gay couple, Dutch men, sit a little ways off discussing the upcoming retirement of one of them. I imagine that they are struggling with the notion of getting old and no longer being the studs they once were but they are deeply in love, I can tell from the way they smile at each other. They could be holding hands but may be they think they are too old for that. They are off to Venice to celebrate their anniversary. They met there ages ago when they were young and randy.

Axel and I held hands in the restaurant at Logan. I wonder whether we show up in someone else’s fantasy. It’s a nice idea – older couple, deeply in love, saying goodbye for awhile. I like that story, and it’s true.

Travelling to DC is not far but with all the waiting it takes a lot of time. We travelled in a little commuter plane and arrived at the end of the morning at the airport car rental place. A young woman rattled off the usual car rental agreement questions in such unintelligible English that I considered telling her I was not a native speaker to slow her down. Although we had requested the cheapest car she must have decided that we needed some pizzazz in our lives and gave us a bright red mustang. Axel got all excited but I got first dibs on driving it. It’s a very macho car with retro dashboard, low bucket seats and a deep dark sound coming from the motor and special exhaust pipes. The gear shift looks like a throttle.

We drove along empty highways to the house where Chris grew up, then returned to after his parents passed away and which, since he retired and moved to join his wife Carol in Seattle is now his daughter’s house. Carol received us with her two tiny pooches who wore knitted sweaters (the girl pink, the boy green) despite the balmy spring-like weather.

There was not enough time to dress up as presents, with ribbons and all, because Chris was on his way home. So we parked the red mustang a little ways off and hid in the kitchen. When Chris walked into the house we jumped out of the kitchen, and witnessed how real the surprise was. Chris, who is rarely speechless, embraced us with bear hugs that made up for the missing words. He then understood that we were the ‘internet present’ which he had been told to expect in the morning.

I had not seen Chris since he appeared in Manchester only weeks after our accident to attend to all our needs and relieve Sita and Tessa a bit. Axel had travelled to DC last April, his first big outing, by train, to help Chris pack to move West. Axel’s left arm was not entirely functional yet at the time and helping to pack was obviously not the main reason for his presence. We caught up with all the changes in our collective lives over pulled pork in a shopping-mall restaurant (which is where suburban Washingtonians go when they eat out).

After lunch we drove to Ruth Gowell who used to be married to Chris when we first knew them. Ruth is an accomplished fiber and glass artist, mostly practicing the two art forms separately but sometimes they come together. Ruth exhibits at Art and Craft Shows all over the East coast and sometimes barters her pieces with other artists. This makes for the most interesting pieces of pottery, glass and other art in her house, which makes you think you are in an art gallery. Son Ian is an artist as well, he blows glass, and makes extraordinary pieces, sometimes with his mom which is when the fiber and glass come together in wonderful ways. Daughter Linnea is an interior designer. She is the only person I know who organizes her books by the color of their jackets. Linnea’s favorite color is green which is rather obvious as soon as you enter her house. I realized that the red and blue Kashmiri rug that I gave her as a wedding present so totally not matches her house décor. Even husband Jason wore green clothes that fit the color of the walls. I think Tessa and Linnea would get along fine because they know about matching stuff.

We took an afternoon nap at Ruth’s because we had been up since 5 AM. And then we reconvened with another cast of characters for yet another shopping mall restaurant experience, Indian this time. We discussed the state of the world and all the things that are wrong with it and voiced our respective opinions on how to fix stuff, and then feasted on korma, paneer, nan, raita and other Indian delicacies.