In Limbo

Hola, mis amigos,

 Last time I left, I was poetic. Last time I wrote poems and concocted eloquent sentences on the subject of Gone. Last time is passed. 

This time I promised myself that I would remember little details. I promised myself that I'd make it interesting for the ones who have to read this. To remember them is one thing, but to make them into sentences that people will actually want to read is totally different. Plus I'm not used to this keyboard and I'm making a lot of mistakes that I may or may not correct eventually. 

My first flight left at 1345 on Thursday. Five people in a 4 person vehicle (okay there was a car seat involved) and a drive through McDonalds drive thru later (those fries tho!), we arrived at the airport where my sister was already waiting. I didn’t want to wait around so after I checked in I gave my family hugs and headed thru security to where I was chosen by ‘random selection’ to have my bags searched. Wonderful start to an already scary (not the right word but I can’t think atm) trip. I found my gate, watched my suitcases get thrown roughly onto the conveyer belt up into the belly of the plane and watched the same belly spew out legs and then the body of the man who was loading the suitcase. I make it sound like he was hurt or something. He wasn’t. It’s just not every day you see a pair of legs dangling from the plane you are soon going to board. Or any plane for that matter. The flight itself was full. My carry-on was stored somewhere towards the back as I was one of the last people on and every compartment by my seat was already stuffed. The front of the plane smelled of weed and those of us towards the back were scattered in between a large family or 2 of East Indians. I tried to see my hometown from the window but the gentleman who was sitting by the window didn’t want the shade open so my efforts were a bit futile. The lady with the English accent on the other side of me kept her earbuds in until my water bottle delivered forth a bit of a fountain of water and then she pulled them out long enough to exclaim ‘Oh! Your book!’ which indeed had been splattered. I took that as an invitation to watch her movie with her till my book dried, except it became too gory for me. By the way, the window shade was opened towards the end of the flight and I was able to watch the sunset. 

Right now I’m sitting in Toronto airport, waiting for my next flight. I have a few hours here but he waiting area by the gate is a bit different than I am used to. Long tables with devices at every seat to keep you busy while you wait, or to make sure you don’t think too much and chicken out of what you are about to do, or maybe to keep you updated while you are away from the outside world. Close to me a small child threw up all over his dad. Off to one side, a trio that can only be co-workers discuss the details of Covid that they are not impressed with and also tell stories in which they call people whom they thought thought they were better than them, names. That was confusing. I talk to an old Ecuadorian lady who thinks that my dress looks pretty and comfortable, and tells me I should go to the beach when I’m in Sao Paulo. I eat some normal food. People bustled around me. A few Mennonite families walked by with 6 or 9 children in tow. It feels almost unreal, to be in an airport, getting ready to board a 10 hour flight, by myself, to spend 3 months in Paraguay, while everyone at home is going about their normal business. Here time is measured by how many minutes to your next flight. Not by the sun or even the lack thereof. You count the hours since you last slept and calculate in when you can sleep again to figure out if you should try to sleep. Same thing with eating. Its hard to imagine yesterday or even last week when you went to work and slept and ate at appointed times and departures and arrivals and destinations were under your control. You are not at home, yet you aren’t at your new home either. Neither here, nor there. In limbo. 

Some of the last paragraph was, obviously, written while waiting to board in the Toronto airport. I didn’t feel like changing the wording so I lied a bit and finished writing it in present tense when really it is tomorrow morning already. 

My next flight was quite uneventful. I boarded at 2008 hours, EST, November 5, to a half full flight. I almost had 3 seats to myself but then a kind lady with pug faces on her socks, switched seats to give a family another seat so their boys could sleep. We faced almost 10 hours on this flight. We were almost ready to back away from the terminal when the intercom dude came on and said that due to a security issue inside the terminal, we were being held at the terminal for an indefinite amount of time. Within half an hour we were taking off, so the wait wasn’t bad. But who knows, maybe we all literally flew away from death. Or maybe someone was refusing to wear a mask. There were 2 small children right near my seat but neither of them were super loud. One of them remind me a bit of Keenan at home, a very active boy. Soon after take off, we were all handed a long rectangle box with our supper in it. Supper consisted of Eggplant Parmigiana Salad, with kale salad and a small loaf of refrigerated bread on the side. Some of us had already eaten supper but tried the food anyways because the package asked us to please be nice to the cook. Or maybe that wasn’t the reason, whatever. The nice pug-sock lady beside me puts her mask on between every bite. Eventually the lights are dimmed and people drift off into fitful sleeps. Random men and old ladies who would normally be too dignified to nod off in public now stretch out on their 3 seats to sleep. Once again my water bottle erupts when I open it and I decide its due to altitude of cabin pressure and it was not smart to bring it along. This time everybody is sleeping so no-one exclaims over it. We change two hours on the flight, so now I am 3 hours ahead of omen time. After some amount of sleep, people start waking up and moving about. Have you ever seen a sunrise from above the clouds? It’s super beautiful, shades of unnatural pinks and purples and then the windows are switched from night mode into day mode and you realize that’s exactly what it was. Unnatural, and a sunrise looks much the same from above as on the earth. 

And then I arrived in Sao Paulo. From the window on our decent, I could see a bumpy, maybe rocky landscape with burnt orange roofs huddled so close there were just glimpses of their colorfully painted walls. Every few blocks there were a handful of skyscrapers with what looked like swimming pools scattered around. I made my way through the airport with the help of a few people and at one point had the choice to either drink the rest of the contents of my water bottle or go back to a bathroom to empty it and come back thru the line again. I drank the water, but they didn’t take any notice of me after I was given the choice so I could have just stick it back in my bag. 

And once again, that has brought me to the present. I found the hotel that had been booked for me for today and here I am, writing this long, boring epistle that is full of useless facts. I could have just attached my itinerary and sent that and that would have done the trick. My flight to Paraguay leaves at 0550 (UTC-3, which would be 3 hours later than CST) tomorrow (Saturday, the 7th) morning. I think I’ll take the chance to eat and sleep and shower and maybe walk around the terminal, find my gate for tomorrow morning so I know where to go when I’m half asleep. And hopefully I’ll send this off later, too. 

Adios, amigos.

 

By the way, I did not really proofread this so take what you read with a grain of salt.