Never have I slept so beautifully and so much on a flight, and there are now less than three hours left of this long 13 hour journey across the Pacific. The cabin mood lighting is just gradually coming on, dim and golden at first, to simulate the light and atmosphere during the birth of a new day.
After getting onboard, I was quickly served a good vegetarian meal, and soon after that I wandered off into sleep and dreamland. I remember a few moments of feeling the plane shake from turbulence, of admiring the reflections of little stars and moonlight on the metal on the wing outside my little window, and opening my eyes to see the flight attendants come by with drinks and snacks…
The vibrations of the engine, the ever constant hum of the fuselage all faded into the background. Even the guy next to me, with the glare of his laptop on almost the entire time, did not bother me as much as I thought (maybe I’m bothering him now, as he’s asleep, and I’m using my laptop…). Though, like often when I sleep, at times thoughts and voices echoed inside my head as I slept.
Some thoughts were filled with anxiety, I can recall, some were filled with fears, some were laden with expectations and longings, some were thoughts of guilt and frustration. Though, like often when I have flashbacks and snapshots of intense feelings and moments in that dream-like state of mind, I don’t and can’t recall what exactly flows through my mind. All these thoughts and flashbacks seem to flow like a fast moving river and quickly fade away into the abyss.
One thought that did stick with me though, and it is a thought seems to trouble me nowadays more than ever, especially flying across a vast ocean, is a nagging fear of something going terribly wrong with the plane. My mind seems at times to momentarily dwell imaginations of something grim happening, like a piece of crucial bolt coming off, or the engine falling apart (recent accidents in the air do not may be the cause of these grim imaginations…) And reading The Life of Pi, the epic story about the survival of a boy stranded on a lifeboat in the vast Pacific, has probably left me somewhat paranoid of something going horribly awry…
Another sort of dream (or perhaps more like a thought during sleep than dream) is the moment of meeting mum again after almost six months of separation. I can picture her face, her hair, her body, and her smell, but that image of her is more likely to be outdated and a figment of my fantasy and my expectations than anything else. No doubt, the recent chemo treatments will have weakened her, aged her, broken and changed her in many ways… perhaps in ways even my vivid imagination cannot possibly come up with… how do I deal with that? How do I approach her, how do I provide her with the care and comfort that she needs? How do I make her feel like she is not alone, and that she is loved and cared for…?
10973metres above the waters between Japan and Taiwan
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