There and Back Again by Me
Well I have been home for a whole three hours and the computer has worked fairly well and I haven't had any suicidal impulses which is something of a record.
I didn't end up sleeping partly due to bad time management and partly due to my paranoia that if I slept I'd oversleep and wouldn't hear the alarm and would end up missing my flight.
On the plane as fate and random evils would have it there were all these random combinations of people, including several people I know and one semi-famous person. I ended up sitting next to the father of my first (and only long term) boyfriend, which was weird to say the least.
It kind of made me nervous that we were going to crash land in the Pyrenees or something and have to crawl to civilisation Alive-style adn that I'd be wrecked by guilt and self-hatred for years for having eaten Nenad's dad. Although I consoled myself that at least I'd probably be able to sell my story to The Sun (I could already see the headlines: *Never Liked him Anyway says Cannibal Psychologist*) which could in turn fund my intensive therapy.
The weather is warmer than I expected, there is only a little bit of snow left and no ice.
I had been so tired from not sleeping this night and sleepin only two hours the previous one that I was out as soon as I sat down practically and was only woken up by the flgiht attendants dropping a very hot sandwich into my hands. Stared blearily at sandwich, stared blearily at Nenad's dad, had very sleepy conversation with Nenad's dad who kept looking at me oddly, while the plane lurched and bucked and swayed like a mad thing due to appalling weather only reinforcing my suspicion that we were going to crash-land in some mountain range.
Thankfually we didn't. Got to Belgarde and I was walking through the airport in a semi-dazed state thinking it was like some elaborate dream sequence in which things are out of place and feel odd, mostly because the corridors seemed wrong and there were all these little souvenirey type shops.
Before I began to suspect myself of having a psychotic episdoe I remembered that they were re-building the airport by tearing down the old terminal for international flights and making all the people who hope to get out of the country check-in in some glorified broom cupboard. However, interstlingly, while not actually fixing the terminal downstairs they did expand the upstairs (for people coming into the country) who may now enjoy a leisurly shopping experience as they stroll towards passport control and baggage reclaim.
At passport control, got my passport stamped by the same woman who had stamped it the last time I was in Yug in October at entrance and exit from the country. She remembered my name, and said soemthing warm and affectionate like :"you again" and I felt the touching delight of an alcoholic beign greeted as they come into thier favourite bar.
My grandmother's verdict upon seeing me was That I'd gotten pretier (I am either prettier of uglier, and generally it is the first thing she says to me).
My stepdad did something really touching for me, and hunted down and bought off someone a gramophone. THey no longer make them here and I'd been mourning and moping and pining for one for ages.
The one I had left over from Dad burnt in The Fire and I'd really been missing listening to his records. Dad has a huge collection of vinyl and in many ways it is my sentimental link to him.
So I've been sitting here listening to the operas and it is like my father is in the room again. I can feel him sitting next to me. If I close my eyes I can hear him singing on the edges of my senses, I get shievers down my spine and it feels for a moment, for a second so real that I think I can almost reach out and touch him. As though music can reach between worlds and the veil between us thins, becomes cobwebs, or mist.
It makes me mis him dreadfully but it also makes me glad.
It also triggered a memory. I am little standing on the doorway of the bathroom watching him shave. I can smell his cologne, in my mind he is whole and real and alive. He is shaving slowly because he is singing.
In the other room there is a duet on the record player. The music is low volume, and after Maria Callas finsihes each aria he sings the male counterpart, and his voice overwhelms me. It soars. It is beautiful and moving and almost indescribable. His voice is like poetry, it is like this pure thing that comes in and lifts or breaks your heart. It spins notes and magic from the clear bight air, it transports us to a different place.
Each note is like liquid honey, or mead, or a perfect, exquisite crafting of love. It was an extraordinary voice he had, the voice that comes once in a generation and I was blessed to hear it and the sorrow of my life is that I can't find a tape of his singng to hear it vividly again, to reach across time except occasionally, breifly, in instants like this..
For a moment in time, I am little again and my father and Maria Callas are singing.
I didn't end up sleeping partly due to bad time management and partly due to my paranoia that if I slept I'd oversleep and wouldn't hear the alarm and would end up missing my flight.
On the plane as fate and random evils would have it there were all these random combinations of people, including several people I know and one semi-famous person. I ended up sitting next to the father of my first (and only long term) boyfriend, which was weird to say the least.
It kind of made me nervous that we were going to crash land in the Pyrenees or something and have to crawl to civilisation Alive-style adn that I'd be wrecked by guilt and self-hatred for years for having eaten Nenad's dad. Although I consoled myself that at least I'd probably be able to sell my story to The Sun (I could already see the headlines: *Never Liked him Anyway says Cannibal Psychologist*) which could in turn fund my intensive therapy.
The weather is warmer than I expected, there is only a little bit of snow left and no ice.
I had been so tired from not sleeping this night and sleepin only two hours the previous one that I was out as soon as I sat down practically and was only woken up by the flgiht attendants dropping a very hot sandwich into my hands. Stared blearily at sandwich, stared blearily at Nenad's dad, had very sleepy conversation with Nenad's dad who kept looking at me oddly, while the plane lurched and bucked and swayed like a mad thing due to appalling weather only reinforcing my suspicion that we were going to crash-land in some mountain range.
Thankfually we didn't. Got to Belgarde and I was walking through the airport in a semi-dazed state thinking it was like some elaborate dream sequence in which things are out of place and feel odd, mostly because the corridors seemed wrong and there were all these little souvenirey type shops.
Before I began to suspect myself of having a psychotic episdoe I remembered that they were re-building the airport by tearing down the old terminal for international flights and making all the people who hope to get out of the country check-in in some glorified broom cupboard. However, interstlingly, while not actually fixing the terminal downstairs they did expand the upstairs (for people coming into the country) who may now enjoy a leisurly shopping experience as they stroll towards passport control and baggage reclaim.
At passport control, got my passport stamped by the same woman who had stamped it the last time I was in Yug in October at entrance and exit from the country. She remembered my name, and said soemthing warm and affectionate like :"you again" and I felt the touching delight of an alcoholic beign greeted as they come into thier favourite bar.
My grandmother's verdict upon seeing me was That I'd gotten pretier (I am either prettier of uglier, and generally it is the first thing she says to me).
My stepdad did something really touching for me, and hunted down and bought off someone a gramophone. THey no longer make them here and I'd been mourning and moping and pining for one for ages.
The one I had left over from Dad burnt in The Fire and I'd really been missing listening to his records. Dad has a huge collection of vinyl and in many ways it is my sentimental link to him.
So I've been sitting here listening to the operas and it is like my father is in the room again. I can feel him sitting next to me. If I close my eyes I can hear him singing on the edges of my senses, I get shievers down my spine and it feels for a moment, for a second so real that I think I can almost reach out and touch him. As though music can reach between worlds and the veil between us thins, becomes cobwebs, or mist.
It makes me mis him dreadfully but it also makes me glad.
It also triggered a memory. I am little standing on the doorway of the bathroom watching him shave. I can smell his cologne, in my mind he is whole and real and alive. He is shaving slowly because he is singing.
In the other room there is a duet on the record player. The music is low volume, and after Maria Callas finsihes each aria he sings the male counterpart, and his voice overwhelms me. It soars. It is beautiful and moving and almost indescribable. His voice is like poetry, it is like this pure thing that comes in and lifts or breaks your heart. It spins notes and magic from the clear bight air, it transports us to a different place.
Each note is like liquid honey, or mead, or a perfect, exquisite crafting of love. It was an extraordinary voice he had, the voice that comes once in a generation and I was blessed to hear it and the sorrow of my life is that I can't find a tape of his singng to hear it vividly again, to reach across time except occasionally, breifly, in instants like this..
For a moment in time, I am little again and my father and Maria Callas are singing.