The first time I flew was in 2007. Since then I have flown a lot of times. This does not include in my moer flieg. I have also discovered that I simply love flying. I love the feeling of landing and I also sleep very nicely on the plane.
In 15 days I will once again be flying. This time to Durban, a city that I have never been too but have heard so much about. Not all good things. Humid, mostly.
Be that as it may I am going to dedicate two of my students and hopefully to set up the Durban branch of my Tradition. But those are not the issues that I wish to talk about. My student in Durban, a lovely woman named Cathy is counting the days until I am there and she has planned an entire schedule of things for us to do. I am really looking forward to it and I am sure it is going to be very exciting. Visiting museums, markets, places of Indian interest, clubs and so on. Cathy is beside herself and very excited to finally meet in person.
I am flying very early in the morning of the 5th of August. When everyone else is still in dreamland I am on the plane. Which is already a worry for me. You see when I wake up, I am not awake. My body may kind of be functioning but I am so not awake. It takes me about three hours to get there. So in theory I will be awake on the plane. ……….. You are forgetting that I love to sleep on a plane and me being still sleepy, this will not be a problem.
Now I think I may have briefly mentioned in the past that it takes quite a bit of Avon foundation and powder and various other hardware tools to make me look good in the morning. But this is in and of itself a very long process. It would be like for God to rearrange the cosmos and I do it every morning. Keeping this in mind and the fact that when I sleep I drool and I toss and turn. Normally I sleep on Paul’s shoulder and I think that he is by now used to having a soggy left shoulder. Now I have to go on a plane, so early that not even God has woken up yet, try to stake awake so that my face doesn’t stay behind on the airplane seat and look wonderfully fresh to meet this wonderful student of mine for the first time. I told her that we have to go for coffee immediately. We can do it on King Shaka airport or anywhere, where I can just sit, and have a nice cuppa coffee. All of this however I can still stomach.
Here comes the crux of the matter. Part of my love for flying is based on the adrenalin rush that is caused by the thought that at any moment in time anything can go wrong with the plane. I have never flown without someone close to me being there. The first time I flew I had my good friend Andi Graff with me. And every flight since then has been with Paul. There has always been someone there to talk to or to keep me occupied so that my mind does not have to linger on the thousands of things that can go wrong while in flight. Call it my Prozac. However this time, there will be no Prozac. I have seen movies like ‘Flight Plan’, ‘Passengers’ and ‘Final Destination’ and the myriad of other movies with airplane problems. I have just about always known someone that works with or on the airplanes and heard all the horror stories of things that could possibly wrong. From engines dropping to windscreens falling out to wheels snapping. Windows falling out, passengers holding on to their seats with nothing more than their false teeth to prevent them from being sucked out. People getting stuck on the toilet (which by the way I have never used on a plane), the list goes on. If it was only snakes, I could handle that. Wont mind actually, but people die on planes and they don’t even know that they are dead. For all you know, you could be dead right now, especially if you have been on a plane before.
The point is, I go off my rocker, I loose what little rationality I have left and I start to think of all kinds of weird scenarios of what can happen. I start to think what will happen if one of the engines fail. Can the rest take us all the way or will they only takes to the exact location of the crash. I bet you we will be there before the paramedics. And through all of this I am not thinking about myself, who at this point will be sweating like a pig on the plane while breathing into a brown bag kicking into the seat in front of me. I am thinking about the poor asshole that has to sit next to me, who has probably flown 10 000 times yet for the first time is also shit scared due to me. Not my stories, scared of me who is practically foaming at the mouth. Maybe I should party the night before, but so much so that I am still drunk the next morning. Or take some porn with me on the plane. Just something to relax. I am sure, no I hope that it wont be that bad, but you never know. So lets all hold thumbs and light a yellow candle for Zeo early in the morning of the 5th of August. And when you see a shooting star, wish that it were not the damn plane falling. If all goes well I will meet my student not looking like an electro shock therapy victim. Mwah!
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