(partly written in flight in the back of sudoku book while waiting in line for washroom)
(reflective pre-babble)
I feel like I am flying into strangeness right now. I am heading somewhere comfortably familiar but also filled with fears and hang-ups I so happily ran away from last March. I did not bring all of myself to Japan but is it still waiting for me in Canada? And what about the areas in which I have grown? Will those stay in Japan? Or come back?
(story)
I am shaken up right now. (almost) Had a horrifying experience. Horrifying for me anyway. Narita lineups were long and I screwed up and forgot about (a) immigrations and (b) boarding time = get on plane time not go through security gate time. Maybe it was the Reginian in me thinking. The same part that still believes that you can get to any point A in a city to any point B in 15 minutes or less. So leave 20 minutes before scheduled time to get your 5 minutes bathroom and relax time before things start. I got to the immigration counter finally and didn’t have a certain form filled out. I was shoed away “dame, dame, dame!” by this bizarrely disgruntled Japanese man. Bizarre because I had yet to encounter a disgruntled Japanese person or one so outwardly so. I went to the side, filled my form, then got through the check. Knowing that I was probably running late (how late though??) I picked up my pace a little. Thirty seconds into my brisk walk I heard an announcement about flight Japan Airlines number 12 to Vancouver paging…”oh crap”…De…”crap” (my pants were slipping down and I gave them a tug up to prepare for what was to come)…ooocha, Meghan…”crap” and I booted it. Carrying a bag full of omiyage and a 20lb backpack (I love you waffles but didn’t at that moment) I ran faster than how fast I think I can run for February’s race. To gate 77 - the furthest away…really really far.
A 3rd of the way through, a staff member raised her hand - “Vancouver?” “Yeah I’m Meghan” I huffed. She ran along side me and scanned my ticket then called the gate staff on her walkie talkie. “Ruuuunnn!” And then I was alone again. It was almost like I was running a marathon with a supporter next to me. I wish she would have given me water, thrown me a towel or something. My chest was starting to burn and I was envisioning the discomfort of the people sitting around me, having to smell the body odors that this episode might have been generating. I really really wanted to stop running but the thought of a plane full of 200 punctual people waiting for me kept me going. Two thirds of the way another person approached me. A nice man with a walkie talkie. He took one bag for me, gave me some words of encouragement, and when I gasped the word “security”, he nodded in understanding. We took the moving sidewalks. I avoided them before because they made me think of Christmas in a neckbrace. Then the gate was finally there. With no other people around. Just the staff waiting for me. “Go go go!” I got onto the plane with my face burning red. Couldn’t find my seat because I didn’t want to look up (my shame is usually on the floor and I like to look at it too much) at the row numbers.
I hate being late. Worse than being late is being late and having a lot of people know you are late and having to walk in alone in front of all those people…late. So it was really scary for me and I spent the first 2 hours of the flight huddled in a ball of I don’t want to do anything else wrong.
Comfort came a while later when I realized that the plane was not late in leaving and would not be late for arrival in Vancouver. Also - people probably didn’t care and even if they did…they probably didn’t anymore and I only cared because I was thinking about myself a bit too much. So overall, I think this was a good experience to have. I learned about almost missing planes and being paged : )
