Getting There

The Bus is a Mercedes Benz! and Other Observations

I am behind in packing and already emotional when dad shows up for the tiny percentage of my 4,000+ mile trip that is the drive to Kansas City. He distracts me with political debate on the way and we say our good byes at the American Airlines terminal, where I check in electronically and check my bag. I observe that flying is not the difficult thing it was made out to be.

Mom and Duane arrive to see me off, and naturally within exchanging ten words with my mother I am sobbing and very prepared to abandon the greater percentage of my wardrobe in check baggage and back out on the whole thing.

But I don't. Hug mom over the security rope, have my pocket knife confiscated, board the plane to Chicago.

At O'Hare I learn immediately that flying is exactly the difficult thing it is made out to be. I get off the plane and look tentatively around, soon to be rescued by a fellow passenger, a self-declared "old married guy" that claims to pose me no threat. I hadn't been worried about this until he brought it up, but he does guide me to the tram and the international terminal, talking nervously about his wife the whole time. I thank him, and then am heckled by rude security persons in customs. I now know that midwestern friendliness is most concentrated in Kansas, even the Missouri-infected parts, and does not extend to Chicago.

I take disorganized notes while waiting to board the plane. Make myself miserable reliving good byes, speculating about my chief worry: that there are those who might stop missing me.

British Airways involves a larger but no roomier cabin and leagues of multilingual stewards and stewardesses with matching red and black ties that charm me. I find that the interior of a cloud is bright and membraneous, like looking out from the deepest parts of a giant jellyfish. And even though I am not prone to sentimentality, I open my left hand as we pass, officially, over the lip of the United States and move over the Atlantic.

I watch Son of Rambow, listen to the playlist Pam assembled on my going-away-present iPod shuffle, miss Pam, turn it off. I read my Ireland travel book to rediscover my excitement, and I remind myself that this is the kind of thing that will make me the kind of person I go around saying I want to be.

Over Ireland I see nothing but the table of the clouds from above, and occasional signs of dark mottling that I think could be land but could just as easily be the light interacting with the clouds and my tired eyes. The multilingual army of stewards and stewardesses serve me delicious salmon over pasta, and I say that yes, I would like some wine with my dinner. Drinking it out of the plastic cup reminds me of my going away party and everything after - long sad silences with people I won't see for months, putting my tears into shirtfronts, frightening Joey by hugging him too tightly around the neck.

It is now August 21st in London, where I land in minutes. Heathrow is enormous and still there is no permanent gate for our plane. We passengers instead descend a stair car and wait on the enormous asphalt plain for a bus. It is cold and rainy but the weather feels good on my skin and in the deep breaths I draw in; I have been bottled for days by planes and airports. I try to see parts of London on the bus but all I can make out is the proud Mercedes Benz title emblazoned on the back of the driver's seat. I wonder if the company thinks this is good advertising.

Aer Lingus (which makes 22 daily flights from London to Ireland!) has green-uniformed stewardesses and several people I learn are studying at Cork, showing up today to be in orientation tomorrow. None are studying literature and most are from coastal colleges and smirk when I tell them I'm from Kansas. I'm impatient. I watch little Irish boys buy "gummy babies" from a vending machine. I wonder as they tear off smiling baby-shaped heads with their neat childrens' teeth why I find this so much more appalling than the familiar gummy bear.

The flight is quick and crowded and I sleep fitfully, waking in time to look down and see Ireland as promised, a network of green, its coasts a crust of painfully blue sea. The friendly man in customs asks how long I plan to stay, and I tell him I have a flight out the 12th of January, and he is surprised. Don't I want to be home for Christmas? Yes, I think. And can Christmas be tomorrow?

I don't want to dwell on this melancholy. I tell him maybe and he wishes me luck, calling me by my first name, and the friendly parts of me chilled over in Chicago and London begin to thaw. At baggage claim I heft my one checked bag off the belt and see that American Airlines attached a warning to baggage handlers to it: HEAVY. Bend Your Knees. A symbol demonstrates the technique.

I find a girl with whom to share a cab. The taxi driver zips along and I tense each time she veers to the left instead of the right to dodge oncoming traffic. The apartment I'm in, she tells me, is ideally located. I give her eight euro for my part of the fare and she calls me "love," and then I haul my stuff up the curb and into the place where I will live.