Grinding to a Screeching Halt

It must not come as any surprise to any of you- or perhaps just to those who 'get' me' by now - that my bags were fully unpacked, all my clothes put away or in the laundry, stacks of souvenirs piled by categories in neat arrangements, toothbrush and toiletries already stored back in their formerly-empty places, all electronic devices blinking green again returned to their chargers, my suitcases breathing deep sighs of relief out in the garage, and a hot bubble bath drawn and ready for my weary bones - all within just over an hour and a half of my arrival home last night.  My Type A chromosomes kicked in immediately just as they did before I left. Call me Mr. Organized, but also call me Mr. Exhausted.

 

It was a day that went on forever (and then some) - from predawn to predawn - all in one, extended unforgettable day.  Crossing back against time does some serious tricks to your mind and eventually and inevitably on your body. Up becomes down.  Night becomes day.  Most of us live a 24 hour day.  Mine yesterday lasted almost 40!  I waded through a crazy, mirror-like time warp returning from Oz across the rainbow of time from the bottom of world back home to the top of it. 

Imagine fighting against - defying  really- the powerful rotation of the Earth, flying eastward racing against the sun, packed into a pressurized, claustrophobic Boeing 747 scraping the atmosphere at 36,000 feet above the Pacific Ocean for nearly fifteen hours with 467 other passengers, slogging and shuffling through four airports, submitting to two full security screenings and immigration checks, weaving through a sea of suitcases on wheels. Cross over seven time zones, herded and shuffled about like a cow for a day and a half, and travel for a total distance of 8,872 miles (a "world record" for me by over 700 miles), and then stay up until middle of the night, not even feeling the need to sleep but only sleeping because you know you HAVE to.  Try putting all that into one day.  That's the kind of day I had.  Time stretched like a piece of taffy.

 

The time difference from Sydney to Seattle is 17 hours, so all the time I 'lost' on my way down was ALL given, compressed and squeezed back to me on the return trip back. Thanks, Time!  I needed that; as if the traveling itself wasn't enough. Changing winter to summer, night into day and then back into night again, crossing over the International Date Line, passing over the Equator, and traversing over the immense curvature of the planet from one end to the next is literally a mind trip even for the most seasoned of globetrotters!  It wreaks havoc on your system. South overnight becomes north. Winter suddenly wakes up to summer just by going from airport to another.  I tell you- it's unlike anything I've ever felt. Talk about falling up (and at times crawling) through the Australian rabbit hole! 

 

The trip home was absolutely grueling at times. I don't do well sleeping upright under any circumstance, and on an airplane full of human sardines- especially when I was seated apparently in the children's section of the aircraft, much to my horror-  it's nearly impossible.  There was a 10-week-old baby sitting directly across the aisle and had no problem letting us all 468 of us know how much she wasn't enjoying her first airplane ride. 

Another 3-year old, put on an epic, non-stop, temper tantrum that took her completely upside down a few times, her face bright red, squealing like a piglet and her mother ineffectively trying to bribe and then muzzle her.  It only encouraged her. That lasted a full 15 minutes and finally the flight attendants showed up, and it finally stopped. How I wound up with misfortune of sitting in the nursery escaped me, and I thought back to my day with the grandparents at King's Canyon, smiled and suddenly missed them.

 

I'm sure I only slept in brief, stolen, 20-minute chunks all the way halfway around the globe and across the Pacific in between the four and a half full features films I watched in the dark.  It was Hollywood Night in a jet!  I only slept when my brain was numbingly sleepy and numb- and thank goodness for those complimentary sleep masks. There was a noisy, whiny brat behind me who thought it was great fun to kick his annoying little orange Nikes into my ribs in the tiny space between 81C and 82C a few times (and once too many) until he felt my disapproval by getting his restless foot firmly shoved back at him and saw the evil, "read-my-glare" look I strategically sent in his direction that pierced the small gap between our seats.  I only had flash it just once, and he didn't dare do it again the whole way. The look on his face was priceless.

 

With the added bonus of a three-hour delay in Melbourne, enduring a move-me-to-tears, missed connection in LA to Seattle, facing the need to kill a whole fun-filled and unnecessary 7.5 hours of waiting-at-the-airport time (a favorite vacation pastime of mine), floating in an ocean of hundreds of thousands of chattering, swarming, multi-national travelers in every direction around me, hauling 150 pounds of luggage up and down countless escalators, sleeping out of utter exhaustion on the cold, granite floor of LAX Airport behind a cart rack like a homeless man and hoping no one would notice me, by the time I turned the key and stepped into my empty, quiet, welcome-sight-of-a-home, both my brain and body were stunned and beat to a pulp.  (Yes, I know that was a run-on sentence fit for a run-on day.) 

My legs could barely walk. I felt my mind flickering on and off like a nearly-burned-out candle.  It felt like being fully awake yet also in a state of dream-like, lucid, rapid eye movement- a consciousness I have never felt.  It felt like a Salvador Dali painting come to life, and I was in it.  I was sleep walking.

 

And I looked at my feet. I was still wearing my trusty and now-Uluru-dusty slippers that every good story about Oz must have.

 

The silence was staggering.  No human being for hundreds of feet in any direction.  There was no noise.  No electric signs, people breathing down my neck, public announcements over loudspeakers, constant movement and stimulation. Nothing at all moved- nothing.  The only sound was the hum of a small prop airplane in the distance or the sound of a car door closing down the block.  Silence. My ears, all my senses, my confused brain could barely process the sudden, complete, exhilarating stillness.  The Earth had stopped spinning. The absence of people, noise, movement, stress,  and the end of two weeks of sheer survival mode had finally arrived.  Home.  It was as if the rotation of the planet that I had fought for the time-warp, taffy-stretch, rabbit hole day came to a screeching, grinding halt.  For the longest time, I closed my eyes and just sat and listened to the peace and silence.  Amazing.  

 

It was as if I were unplugged in an instant.  And Australia had come and gone.

 

I honestly had planned on wrapping up my trip to The Great Down Under in my jet-lag, REM-like, zombie-like, stupor state today and put my blog to rest...just like I did to my trusty suitcase and passport last night, but this epic tale  of travel (a saga actually), the energy I somehow drew upon to survive it and the exhaustion that imposed on my beyond-over-fatigued physical self was just too rich and important not to include and share with you. 

 

Please, please, please wait for one more entry to my blog about my dream to Australia, my childhood dream come true. I may be unpacked physically, but I am most definitely not mentally. 

 

Be patient with me as I first make the adjustment to No-Place-Like-Home, Pacific Standard time, North America, the other end of the time travel hole.  Today (or was it last night?...I've lost track) I slept for nine glorious hours and then turned around a few hours later, took a long nap and dreamed a bizarre, surreal story about catching two-headed snakes with my brother.  This sleepwalking is wacky, and I am not ready to fully "debrief" with you all.  I have more to tell you. Give me one more day.

 

I will polish this story up with a proper finish, make it "The End" soon and a look back at Australia through my eyes and reflect on this unique country, bountiful, massive continent and magical  island that still cling to me from a world far away.  The story of my journey to Oz deserves one more chapter.