Flying

I hate flying. No, I'm not against Superman or birds or Gary Ablett Sr (remember him standing on Chris Langford's head back in, what was it, 1993?), but my aversion I speak of is being in an aircraft, in the air. It's something that has been bubbling under the surface since I first boarded a plane at the age of 20, when me and my best mate Waz boarded a 747 bound for the UK. That flight, and the fifty or so since, haven't worried me in the slightest, mainly because there was barely a ripple of turbulence on any of those flights, and the fact I was young and silly and perhaps didn't give life the credit it deserved.

On my first few flights, particularly the first one with Waz (yes, I jumped straight into the deep end, no domestic flight in Oz to speak of, just an epic journey to a destination almost as geographically far away as possible) any nerves I may have had were assuaged by a dozen stiff drinks. That would get me to Kuala Lumpur or some other Asian middle-of-the-planet stopover and then I'd be so dehydrated and deliriously tired that I'd even manage some shut-eye on the back nine.

I've done flying's full gambit: 24-hour long-hauls - four times back and forth to the UK and Ireland; the halfway ones to Asia and back; and, of course, the blink-and-it's-gone commercial journeys within our great country. From the outside I could have even be perceived a casual flyer, one who could read immerse myself in a film, or read great chunks of novels, or happily slap my knees to music, or wile away many an hour unsuccessfully trying to beat the in-flight computer at tennis or frustrate myself no end at mini-golf. Until now. That voice, the one that I'd manage to bury away in my inner psyche, was always right. Truth is, I am scared when I'm up there. All it took was one incident, one flirtation (in my mind) with death for that voice to take over my faculties of reasoning; to scar me, perhaps forever.

Let's recap. Seeing I've given you a long, some might say self-indulgent lead-in to the story (that's the beauty of having your own blog, there's no issues with word count, or space, or even sticking to the point or angle of the story) I think it's only fair, for purposes of consistency, to give you ample lead-up to my flight from hell. A story told in detail is a story told well.

My beautiful girlfriend Tash and I recently left our lives behind for a tick under a month as we took in Buenos Aires and Argentina's lake district, and the US of A's New York and Los Angeles. As part of a snaffled bargain basement US deal, we flew to LA first. This flight went by in the wink of an eye, and aside from Tash and I being stuck in the middle of the four-seat middle aisle, with big, snoring men either side of us, it was smooth and uneventful: just the way I liked it. We spent the day touring Hollywood on a bus tour, one that would have been exciting had we not been so utterly jet-lagged.
Guide: 'And there, behind those large gates, amid those million dollar plants, next to the that statued waterfall, is Brad and Angelina's house...'
Tash and Lewy: Snore.

The next flight, from LA to Buenos Aires, went along the same, Guinness-head smooth lines. I'll stop here to say this part of the journey wasn't even part of the original plan. If Tash hadn't fallen pregnant after we'd booked our flights to Peru with the intention of doing the Inca Trail, perhaps I wouldn't be spending time recounting this story, and maybe I'd be thinking of my next trip overseas without thoughts of dread. But she did (which is indeed a blessing and, after a few weeks (months?) of uncertainty I have to say I'm besotted with the little creature captured on the 12- and 20-week scans and can't wait until December when it springs eternal) and therefore, due to the required immunisation jabs that are said to increase the risk of miscarriage, we had to dispense with the Inca dream and instead moved our flights, at a small cost, to Buenos Aires.
(Which, while we were there, was more than sufficient compensation. Buenos Aires is an amazingly diverse city, and we spent five endless days walking its streets, taking in as much as possible but ultimately only unravelling a tiny part of its rich cultural tapestry. Hip cafes, a hauntingly beautiful cemetery that is home to Eva Peron, the chance to retrace the steps of the hallowed grounds where Diego Maradona's twinkle feet once had his countrymen in the palm of his hand, and, last but surely not least, beautiful people everywhere, men included {Tash, to her credit, refrained from the sideways glance... as far as I know...} A huge city that takes up more than a third of Argentina's population, where the poor are poor and the rich are exceedingly, exclusively so. Unforgettable. And the Lake district - surrounding the homely town of Bariloche where the cleverly named 'Seven Lakes' are situated, was as breathtaking an alpine area you could hope to see, even if the lack of English {I learnt a few basic words but the locals' propensity to speed talk had me baffled every time} counted against us on two of our day tours, one of which we were cooped up in a bus for twelve hours with a nasally tour guide whose high-pitched Spanish and reluctance to accommodate us with her limited, but probably adequate, grasp of English had me thinking of all sorts of weird, Temple Of Doom-type ceremonial stuff... In the end our source of revenge was to not tip her at its conclusion.)
It was just the flight back across the equator towards the Land of the Free that has me scarred.

And so, to the flight itself. We checked in three hours before our flights to ensure we had our own aisle seat. The friendly woman at the reservation desk, one of few who spoke fluent English, gave us two aisle seats towards the rear of the plane, one of the last few remaining, adding that these were only available because people generally don't like sitting at the back. When I asked why, she mentioned something about people not feeling safe there. Is that because if the back snaps off, we're the first to go, I asked, drawing laughter. We guffawed a little more before we moved on towards customs. We boarded without fanfare. Upon taking up our seats, Tash voiced her displeasure that there was no in-flight entertainment, just a few strategically placed screens, the nearest of which wasn't working anyway. Next to us, in the three-seat middle aisle was a woman of middle-eastern appearance, wearing a long dress and bandanna, with two daughters. She was leafing through a Koran, praying. I looked away.

The take-off was stock-standard: we ascended, found altitude and cruising speed soon enough, and then the pilot turned off the seatbelt sign. The Captain's voice came through the speaker, informing us of all the places we'd be flying over, our expected arrival time, and that he was expecting a smooth journey. I opened my book and relaxed into my seat. There was no in-flight entertainment this time, which I thought a good thing as I could make some decent inroads into my novel and not get sucked into the ultimate of all life-suckages: computer games.

In a jiffy, Tash was served up her vegetarian meal (not that she's against meat, just the random bits and pieces that make up the meat options for in-flight meals). The flight path navigator suggested we were somewhere over southern Brazil. And then the buffeting started. At first it felt no different to regulation turbulence but within seconds I knew it was something more than that. We'd apparently enveloped ourselves into an unexpected air pocket of terror. The dreaded bell of the seatbelt sign flashed on and the little girls next to us starting crying, blubbering 'mummy, mummy'. I grabbed Tash's hand, an understated sobbing in my voice as I said with increased urgency: 'Tash, Tash'. The plane shook and bumped. After about half a minute the plane felt like it went into a spasm and then it dipped. My heart flipped. Then it stopped dipping, and came to a jolting halt, like we'd landed mid-air, and everyone was lifted from their seats. It reminded me of a silly time with several mates in Cobram when I was 18 or 19, when a mate, known by all and sundry as 'Pronga', fifteen pots of draught to the good, decided to take us on a crazed tour of our hometown in his yellow Datsun. The car would never be the same again after he flew over a levy bank near the river and came crashing to the ground a few seconds later. My head hit the roof on that occasion. Although my cranium didn't hit ceiling on this occasion, this felt much worse. Tash's glass of water lashed her meal. The little girls' cokes tipped along their trays. A few yelps escaped from other passengers' mouths but most stayed calm, even as the rattling continued. The Captain's voice came through the speaker: "Sorry about that ladies and gentlemen, we encountered some unexpected turbulence there, we are going to change our flight path slightly to see if we can get out of this bad area. Flight crew, please stay in your seats."

The plane continued to rattle we descended slightly. I had no choice but to hold the Captain to his word. Things calmed down a bit. Tash looked across at me. "That was bad". I couldn't speak. I didn't want to be up there any more. I was in a situation I had no control over and I'd peeked into the world of death. I didn't like what I saw. A wave of pure sadness washed over me, making me feel dirty. I was aware of how common turbulence was but it was the utter unexpectedness, the sheer violence of mother nature that shook the plane mid air that made it feel like something out of a movie, that made me think: this is my time. And I couldn't get rid of the sadness. I could barely talk. Two years ago it wouldn't have worried me. But now, with my partner carrying my future child next to me, I had more in the world to concern myself with. I wanted the baby to see the world, I wanted to leave something behind before I went on my way. Apparently this sort of thing is, and I hate this word, common. What isn't common though, and I've always prided myself on being a little different, is how utterly irrational I was being. Tash was no doubt spooked but was able to hold herself together. She didn't want to harm the child. Where as I, the man, the so-called protector, would sit there fidgeting, fists clenched, gently punching myself in the mouth, flicking in and out of in-flight movies and games, unable to concentrate on anything other than what I thought was our pending death for more than a few minutes.

The rest of the flight was ugly to say the least. There would be periods of calm but inevitably the demons of turbulence would have their wicket way again and yet again the seatbelt sign would flash on and that sickening sadness would engulf me again. What perplexed me most was how calm other passengers were. How they could just sleep through it, some of them in that open-mouthed deep slumber, was beyond me. How could they allow their bodies to lapse into such a state of advanced relaxation when our mode of transportation was akin to that of jut-impeded cattletruck, 30,000 feet above the air?

These airbuses, are they safer than 747s? Am I right in thinking those old mothers used to cut through the air, regardless of the weather? Airbuses seem to be just that: like a bus on a rattly road, except in an an airspace that requires oxygen if things go awry. I can't, and probably won't, subscribe to the theory that when it's your time , it's your time, and in life you should only worry about what you can control. That's why I won't get on a plane again for a while. However, I also abide by the adage, time heals all wounds, and have been told by others averse to flying that eventually I will be okay to fly again. I hope so, because I still have much to see and do; there are continents to conquer, things to show my kid down the track that will require travel.

As for the rest of the trip, we had a ball in New York, the city that throbs to its own heartbeat. Mixed it up well. Spent the first four nights in the crazy busy Roosevelt Hotel near Times Square, then took up residence at an apartment in East Village (which proved conveniently close to the home of Cobram's favourite son, Brad Blanks), then rounded it out with a night in Central Park West, near where John Lennon was murdered. After nine days in the big Apple it was time to get back on a plane: a four-hour flight to LA. My nerves were still shot, I needed another flight like a weekend binge-drinker needs a stein of lager on a Monday night, particularly when the plane took a minor buffeting as we ascended. This is where I was at: if we are being knocked around on the way up, what's it going to be like when we reach cruising speed? Surrounded by Aussie accents again (it's amazing how strong the accent sounds when you haven't heard it for a while; it's like something out of a movie) was a minor comfort and we got to LA in one piece. Two nights at the Roosevelt in Hollywood allowed me to relax and try to put the pending flight home out of my mind as I sun baked by the hotel's famous pool surrounded by a hundred beautiful, plastic people. But I allowed myself to be immersed in a USA Today article about the Air France flight, and the apparent heavy thunderstorms the plane had snagged itself in not long before disappearing into the sea. The old heartbeat thumped and I felt pathetic once more. I even put forth the idea to Tash that we perhaps take a boat home. A romantic cruise, was how I put it. When Tash saw I was half serious she explained that it would take weeks, months even, and we had a life in Melbourne to get home to and to stop being so silly.

But that nonsensical mindset stayed with me and was very much on song as I tried to combat anxiety boarding the plane that last time. The captain assured us it would be a smooth flight but he expected a few bumps just north of the equator. Great, I thought. Something to look forward to. I hung in there for eleven hours, continually checking the flight path, shaking my head and trying to take heed of Tash's advice to take deep breaths when we did hit turbulence and the seatbelt sign was turned on. Then I could see the top of Cape York appear on the flight path map, and as the gap between the little white plane and Australia's east coast lessened, the better I felt.

After we touched down Tash turned to me and said, "I'm never flying with you again". And I don't blame her. But I was rapt. It felt great to be on the ground again. Great to be home. I had fallen in love with Melbourne all over again. No more cliche-avoidance: it's great to be alive.