Sunday, December 06, 2009

35777ft

It can be difficult to write in public. Especially when you're somewhere like on a plane, where you know people have nothing much to do or look at and so will be more likely than usual to look over your shoulder at your book or film or, in my case, impromptu blog post/general writing being typed in an unfamiliar and kind of cool-looking word processing application... oh, and once again iTunes shuffle manages to tap into the universe and give me a song of such relevance and humor that I can't help but wonder if perhaps its magical powers are increased by the altitude. Yes, altitude. This is almost definitely the highest post I have ever written, as I am currently... (excuse me while I attempt to navigate the oddly counter-intuitive functioning of the entertainment screen to find the in-flight info) ...ooh, we're almost over Newfoundland :) and...wow, why would I want to look at the air map thing in this many different formats, tell me the altitude please... really? A whole planet view?...Planet view including weird blob of darkness thing indicating the geographical placement of nightfall? Really?... ah, here we go- 35777ft. This information no longer really feels all that worthwhile, having sat through two and a half rounds of the amusingly elaborate/useless informational graphic reel...ok, screen off. And down to business. Why am I currently over thirty-five thousand feet over that unimaginably vast, sometimes lethal, often beautiful body of water we like to call the Atlantic Ocean, Clodia cramped awkwardly between my seat-belt buckle and quaintly designed tray-top, falling into a writing style so convoluted and hyper-descriptive as to be painful to garner any meaning from? (d'ya like what I did there?...haha). Well, I'm here because I did it.

I have this memory that recently decided to show itself suddenly and for no apparent reason (as is consistent with how my memories often make their entrance) of a time when my mother, my sister and I were living in London in a little apartment above a Chinese take-away place on the Watford Way. Mom was studying sports therapy at Hendon College down the road, Jess was in maybe her first or second year of secondary school at Loreto College in St.Albans, and I must have been in year four or five of primary school at St.Joseph's, just around the corner. Despite the occasional rats and cockroaches, and the (not entirely unconnected, I'm sure) constant and eventually chronically nauseating smell from the restaurant downstairs, we were three girls, a family, just getting along, learning and living and laughing together, and it was a good time. And the particular memory that recently drifted back to me of this time was during what would've started out as one of the more difficult days; our nearest supermarket was a good twenty minute walk down the noise and dirt of the motorway, and, although this isn't really much of a journey alone or with only fully-grown companions, with two young daughters and (on the return trek) a week's groceries, I consider my mother (not uncharacteristically) brave to undertake such a task on a regular basis. Anyhow, so on some nights, when Jess & I were particularly cranky from the errand, or it was dark enough to worry about the dangers of London at night, we would be spared the daunting walk and treated to a cab ride home by our merciful mother. On this particular night, not only was it dark when we got outside, but it was one of the first really bitingly cold nights that are a sure-fire sign Winter has truly elbowed Fall out of its way (a night not unlike, incidentally, tonight), and it might've been raining, although I can't say for sure. The three of us were standing shivering outside the neon warmth of the supermarket waiting for the then smoky comfort of a cab's dustiness and new familiarity, when our mother decided to let us in on the surprise she'd been teasing us with for the past few weeks. We were going to New York for Christmas. Now, for most young girls, this surprise would perhaps have meant a big, famous, shiny new city in the fabled country of Hollywood and perpetually flattering lighting, but for us, this meant a trip of unequivocally insufficient length, this meant a Christmas that counted because it was white, this meant Grandma, and cousins, and Jolly Ranchers; this was the promised land. Home.

This is the first memory I have of crying from pure joy. These days it isn't all that rare an occasion, but at the time it was completely unexpected and, frankly, quite alarming. And that overwhelming joy that I, age seven or eight, felt at the prospect of the journey to a place where, for some as of yet unexplained reason, I felt so comfortable and content, as though the entire country were my own bed, that I pined for it like a relative, never faded, never waned. Every trip was as revitalizing as it was saddening, because, whether it was ten days, two weeks, or twenty-one whole, correct days later, I always had to leave. And so, when it came to my attention, as my last year of school came speeding towards and through me, that I couldn't go any longer studying when my mind pulled my focus so fiercely towards writing and playing music, there seemed little question as to the inherent interconnectivity of these two ideals; I wanted to go to America, and I wanted to play music. I wanted to play music, and America was the place to do it. But I had to get there myself. I was a grown up now, and if I was going to take the reigns of my life and build it how I'd always felt I could and would, I had to do this right. So I moved out of my Mom's home, and away from the small town we'd landed in for the past five years, and back to London to work my way to New York to sing. Six jobs, three changes of address, a drastic haircut, a new best friend, and hours of sleep deprivation later, and I was walking to the bank with enough wages saved to get me across that sky of water and give it a try. And so here I am. I have packed up as little as I could bear of my belongings (not very little, in fact, at all), I have kissed my mother and father and brother and sister goodbye, and I am breathing. I'm on this plane, for the first time in my many flights without family or Shell or school, and I'm sitting next to a woman with a kind soul and my Grandmother's eyes, and the the head-rush fumes of her nail-polish are assuaging my nerves, and I am alive. And I am tired from this past year, and I am anxious, and I am sad at the lack of my recently so warm and present family, and I am older, as always, than I should be, and I am on my way.

3 comments:

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Anonymous said...

Greetings,

Thanks for sharing the link - but unfortunately it seems to be not working? Does anybody here at johazelwoodsjournal.blogspot.com have a mirror or another source?


Cheers,
Peter

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