Homebird travels

I’ve heard it said that you should never open a piece of travel writing in the airport, so I’m not going to. I’ll start it in the pit of my stomach. A pit which sank deeply as I packed my bag, arranged paperwork and prepared to fly. Why do I do this to myself? I wondered, as a few lines of Elizabeth Bishop’s poetry ran through my head. What childishness it is that while there’s a breath of life in our bodies we are determined to rush to see the sun the other way around? I’m excited. I’m grateful and I love it, but, you see, I have a heart torn in two by yearnings to stay and yearnings to go – the heart of a homebird that wants to explore, or perhaps that of a wanderer who loves its nest. Why do we rush to see the sun from the other side? I’m not yet sure. Maybe it’s because of the places we see by doing so. Or maybe it’s for the people we meet along the way.

I think my nerves were largely because this was the first time I had flown abroad on my own. Travelling solo – it was a new concept for me. Will people judge me? Is it freedom or loneliness, independence or isolation? I soon found that I was only as alone as a human with Liverpuddlian in their blood can be on a mode of public transport – before taking off, the couple on my left had told me their occupations, about their children, and that they had been together twenty years. A trip to Rome is a wonderful celebration. I had exchanged pleasantries, phatic complaints and comments about the heat with the family on my left. I don’t suppose I was flying solo after all.

As we drove around the runway, crawling along the tarmac for longer than expected before taking off, the gentleman from across the aisle tapped me on the arm. “We’re going by road,” he said. Well, at least all roads lead to Rome.