Encore et toujours

Here I am, once again, standing on another precipice... So I begin with a line from a new song still mulling through my head. I'm at Auckland Airport again, about to return to Melbourne, the place from where all my adventures seem to stem. This time I recognise the process. I have been here enough times to know how it works and even the people closest to me are blasé about my going this time that there is little anxiety, no tears, just the briefest of hugs and a cheerio wave. And yet there are still those touched by my leaving just as there will be others affected by my return – I hope.

It is only at the airport then that I see the faces of strangers going through the mixed emotions of farewells with tear stained faces, red and streaked, supported by familial hugs. Are these people going further afield than across The Ditch? Will they be away for a longer time? This particular jaunt, I fly at four in the afternoon, a considerably more civilised hour and consequently there have been more offers to see me off than when I leave on a 7.00am flight. But here I sit now alone, two hours before my flight, surrounded by complete strangers shedding tears.

I have become a totally independent traveller. I pack my bags so that I can carry the total without assistance. I pay my own way, I make my own fortune but I understand too that I am not an island and the importance of offering and accepting help and sometimes even asking for it if it is appropriate. I have grown so much since starting out on my writing journey in August last year. I have remembered that the best company in the world is mine. I have known the splendour and serenity of solitude. I have discovered that despite being by myself, I am never alone because the world is full of strangers who are simply friends I have yet to meet.

At the airport there are oh, about a dozen flights all leaving at the same time and so the queue through security zigzags for what seems like an age. People jostle and vie for position and some have more reason to be anxious than others. Airport staff trickle down the line calling for passengers for Apia as they are holding the plane up. The Melbourne and Sydney flights are also receiving their final calls. Oh, wait, that Melbourne flight is mine and I am still in the queue being frequently nudged from behind by a girl who doesn't know how not to invade my personal space. A question that has been on my mind a fair amount lately pops into my brain. What's the hurry? Doesn't anybody know the virtue of patience any more? Are we obsessed with it all being about “ME” and regarding ourselves as more important than anyone and everyone else? Several people have already managed to work their way further up the queue by simply disregarding the presence of other people and I watch them all with irritated interest. There is a common look of arrogance on each of their faces. On the whole however, tempers and temperaments are more easygoing than they are in the midnight hour snake lines through customs. At that o'clock, after even just a short flight, people tend to look like their passport photos, drained, creased and ten years older. Trinny and Susannah need to invent a remedy for 'Airport Wretchedness'.

Eventually on the other side of the metal detectors, which surprisingly I made it through despite having a skirt held together by sequins, I can gather my possessions off the conveyor belt and walk briskly to the gate. Along the way I meet a woman heaving and sweating under the weight of three, obviously more than 7kg, bags. Earlier I saw her happy and smiling, draped with multiple, multi-coloured lai garlands of chocolates and lollies. Now they were stuffed into a bag, lugged desperately to her departing plane. As I approached her she whimpered a pitiful plea for help.

“Are you okay?” I asked fearing a heartache judging by the beads of perspiration trickling down her forehead.

“Pleese,” was all she had words for so I instead read her need from the strain on her face and relieved her of the least valuable looking of her bags. It happened to be the one with the lolly lais.

“Are you going to Melbourne?”

She shook her head.

“Oh where, where do I go for Apia plane, pleese?”

I had no idea but telling her to follow me brought a look of grateful relief so that was what I did. I walked her to the sign allocating gate numbers and pointed to her flight and gate number. Fortunately it was the one before mine so with a bit of juggling, we managed to get on the escalator (there was no way I could see her navigating the stairs without catastrophe) and the gate.

“God bless you,” she said as I handed back the bag.

I was having a conversation in the car on the way to the airport about the presence of Guardian Angels. My belief system recognises a spirit of guardianship and acknowledges that it is often channelled through the kindness of strangers. Okay, so I've done my Guardian bit for the day then.