planes

missed you

~ extraplorer ~ Leave a comment

Dear extraplorer,

I’m home. You may not realised it but I have been away a long time.  I have to tell you that everything I have been doing while I have been away has been very important. I have been working all over the world, helping people to grow. I have been writing at home for weeks, finishing off a book I hope will make a difference to the world, and bring more courage and joy and delight (but will anyone ever read it, I’m not sure). And I’ve been keeping hope alive wondering what someone else is doing in a far away place. I have been cooking and eating and seeing friends and doing pilates and running and sleeping. Sometimes I have crept in here to see you and I have wished that I had something to write here. But all my thoughts have been in my book and all my energy has been on planes and trains and in classrooms, and I have wandered around in my heart but not been ready to share what is in there, not yet.

extraplorer, I miss you, but I am here now, and I will be back. Be patient.

x

lost journal – the journal’s tale

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Only slowly does it dawn on me
that motion has ceased.
It is silent for the first time
in a long while.

I cannot make a sound
to attract attention.
I wait so still,
hoping.

It is warm between
the Financial Times
and Vogue.
But I shiver.

Swoop, arms gather the
newspaper and detritus
of flight BA0589
from Milan Linate.
I slide out under the
seat in front of you.

Will they come with vacuum
cleaners?
Not this time.  I hear the
hum of new arrivals.
Distant first,
then nearer.

Am I going back to Milan?
I recall cosy bedrooms,
grand galleries
and a few moments at a café,
when I was loved.

I miss the motion of her
pen, the flicking of my pages
and the close attention of her
eyes rereading and sometimes
looking away.

I miss the triumphant tick
in a small blue box
the sigh of satisfaction
and the sometime quick
snap-shut of a distraction.

What’s that?  Far from being
cornered by another
bag, I am being retrieved
by a total stranger.
I hold my covers tightly
shut through sheer willpower
to no avail.

Alien eyes peruse my pages.
I hope her writing turns
to scribble just in time.
My pages are flicked back and forward.
‘There’s no address’ I observe
unnoticed.  Only ‘private’ and
maybe hidden clues, who knows?

With relief, I remark
a kind of gentleness of touch.
Hope glimmers – perhaps I might
be restored to my owner?
I know she is looking for me
amongst the other
lost possessions, can hear her
hopeful tap-tapping of her plea
to find me.

I am being
slid in
to someone’s business bag.
I smell leather and Apple.
My pages snag on chargers.
For the first time, I am afraid of the dark.
I want to go home.

And I know I won’t.

lost journal

~ extraplorer ~ 2 Comments

lost journal

I lost my journal on the plane
flower print, ditsy,
‘she dreamed of diamonds
and life on the ocean wave’.

My blue-biro pen loops,
curls and lines and dots
are orphaned.
How will they manage
without me?

Tiny hand-drawn to-do boxes
will be half-unticked.
forever.
Scribbled inspirations
may never see
the light of day now.

I feel fortunate
I forged a bond
with the crew of
BA0589
from Milan Linate.
But how much was
just politeness?

And anyway, perhaps
it was an unknown cleaner
who discovered treasure
under the Financial Times?

I hover over the
lost luggage website.
It seems my life
is now in the company
of Macbook Airs, Dubai dates
and an antique firearm
(Business Class Lounge,
Lufthansa).

I slip poetry into
every non-drop-down-box
of the standard claim;
perhaps a small serenade
might lure Juliet
to her balcony.

I send the form,
and wonder.
What will they send me?

things I want to tell my children but might forget – going downstairs (and lifts and planes)

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Going downstairs

You may be surprised that stairs are considered very important.  If you watch a film like The Snowman, you will notice that it shows James going down the stairs, even though it does not really show him walking down the hall or landing.  This is because there is something special about changing levels, and it is to do with flying.  While we are thinking about this we are also going to think about lifts and planes.

Lifts

‘Going up!’  In a lift, when you hear this announcement, try jumping.  What is funny is that the floor will come up a bit to meet your legs while you are in the air.  so your landing distance will be a bit less than your taking-off distance.  This is also true the other way round.  If the lift says ‘going down’, then jump and you will land a bit lower than you took off.  This creates a funny feeling like a smile in your legs.

Planes

The same kind of inner woosh happens when you are in an aeroplane that is taking off.  To get into the sky the plane must start by going very fast along the land.  At a certain point, the plane nose will be pulled up and the plane is no longer on the ground but in the air.  There is a particular sensation at this moment which is like a gasp inside you followed by a tiny ripple going through your veins; this is because you are now flying, something that people wanted to do for centuries before we were alive because they looked at birds and wanted to be like them.  We are very lucky because at the time that we are alive, people have found a way to do this.  There are other moments that we feel this feeling and we will think about those later.

It is a strange thing that it is exciting to leave the ground, but it is also a good feeling to land.  Both feelings are good.  Being in the air feels free and wild and brave and being on the land feels solid and connected and comforting.  It is a very good thing when both two opposite kinds of feeling are enjoyable.

Going downstairs

So now you can probably see why going downstairs and upstairs is a special kind of action.  The other thing about going downstairs is that it is a transition that takes time you can notice.  Getting up is a transition that is happens in the amount of time we could call ‘the blink of an eye’.  Blink!  You’re out of bed.  Going downstairs is a transition that takes about ten seconds (unless you run, or slide on a lilo).  So you can notice it while it is happening, if you decide to pay attention.