1995 Gran Canaria: On my way back home

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Gran Canaria

 

1995

3 Months

NYC

A Jewel

Eivissa

Tree Abuse

ECO

Black Friday

Bocadillo

Danger!

Estofado

Sangria

Rave

Cannibis

Camino Viejo

Neutrinos

Weather

Roosters

JCS

The PM

Plongeé

Smila

Customs

O. J. Verdict

1995 Eivissa (Ibiza): Fish Monger

A Roar

MacWorld

Padinkos

Bye E, Hello GC

Gran Canaria

Where

A Tour

How

Food

Yumbo

Las Palmas

Playa

1995 Gran Canaria: Potpourri

Norteños

More Food

Irishmen

Heading Home

USA

With Dad

Back at Home

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1995 Gran Canaria: On my way back home

4 Nov 1995

Got up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head, ...

Last night, after a wonderful home-cooked dinner of potato latkes (pancakes) and apple compote with Oma I stepped out of the house. I said goodbye to Elsa and Heinz Kleuger, and thereafter to Frau Goodman. What little remained of my packing was done in a few minutes. I sat down in an empty room and checked my email. Among the twenty or so messages was a very strange, short missive from K, a close friend who has manic-depression. (My adventures with her in the quest for proper medication are many, but will have to wait for another time.) I knew she was in the grip of another cycle, and I worried for her and for all of us.

I sent a quick note to her family, also living in San Francisco, asking if things were okay, and explaining my suspicion. I went to bed with a heavy heart, wondering if my friend was safe, or wandering around the city, finding meaning in every license plate and twinkling star. To my surprise I found within myself anger, directed not at K, but at the situation. I find it impossible to live normally when a friend is in physical and mental danger. I fell into a fitful sleep, hoping hopes of safety and security.

This morning I arose at 0445, took a shower, packed away my toiletries, and checked my email for the last time in Gran Canaria. I got a denial of any problem from the affected party and a confirmation of the cycle from her family. She'd been in a cycle for about a week, had seen her doctor, and had been prescribed increased medications (which K said she was taking). I wasn't sure whether to believe her. Not surprizingly, people in a manic high are unreliable in matters concerning ending what feels like an on-going creative euphoria.

I said goodbye to a tearful Oma with a heart heavy from two loads. Oma and I plan on seeing each other in the springtime at an family get-together. What the near-term future holds for K is uncertain. (When this last happened, about a year ago, I did a massive intervention, working with her doctor on increasing several medications, calming her mania and bringing it under control in three days. But I'm not there, and it evidently wasn't caught in time.) Heinz Kleuger drives me to the airport in a pitch-black morning, all three cylinders of his tiny car whining in the gusty morning wind.

Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to Madrid-Barajas

(Back to the present tense.) The first leg of my journey back starts on a sour note: the plane is almost an hour late in taking off. The flight itself is fine. I saw a strange and wonderful phenomenon - some combination of the angle of the sun and clear, cold air made a single air current visible as it blew over the top of the wind. It lasts about a minute, until the rising airplane hits and crosses through a cloud layer. When we emerge into unbroken sun the phenomena is gone.

During the flight I see the movie Canción de Cuna (Cradle Song), wonderful movie about a closed order of nuns who find their convent has a new member: an abandoned baby girl. A great movie. I was smiling all the way to the ground.

Madrid-Barajas

At the Illy Café for the third time in as many months, I find that John Broomfield - the man responsible for keeping me wired for most of this trip - hasn't yet arrived. He told me a few days ago that he'd drive the 300 km (180 mi) from Zaragossa to Madrid to lift an espresso or two. He arrives only a few minutes later, and we talk about computing and cultural matters for almost two hours until I have to board my next flight.

Madrid-Barajas to John F Kennedy

This next leg gets off to another bad start: we start off almost forty minutes late. But we're still scheduled to land on time. (The bastards have just tacked on an extra hour to the reported flight time to maintain their "on time" standings. Well, if you design a system that encourages people to lie, they will.) Unlike the last flight, this one doesn't have a free seat. I get into my aisle seat, suffer through a mediocre lunch (the one on the way here sure was a lot better (or I was a lot hungrier)), and settle in to watch the movie and then sleep (the only way to make a plane trip go by). What's the movie? You guessed it: Canción de Cuna. Is it just that I'm prickly because I'm worried about K or that everything is going to hell in a handbasket?

I decide that I can't decide and I fall into a deep sleep, covered by a blanket, hands securely under the seat belt. I sleep through whatever passed for "snack" and most of the movie: I'm guessing I slept for about two and a half hours. I nice start, but now I'm awake. I use the head, drink a small can of club soda, pace the aisle, look out a door porthole, and arrive back at my seat, having used up another two minutes. Sigh. I take a few pictures of the trip map (which goes black just as I'm writing this) and download the images of a full QuickCam to my hard disk. I finish up an article about document and email security (through encryption) and I start to write this page. The map shows we're over St Pierre, two and a half hours from the JFK, in Queens, New York City.

Whereas I was on an emotional high last night, looking forward to seeing my parents, calling my friends, and playing with my new PowerBook (did it arrive?), I'm now on an emotional low, worrying about my friend. Then another gnat bites the elephant: I'm too late to purchase two toys for my god-child, Kaeli. It seems I slept through the announcement that the in-flight shop is open and U.S. Customs Regulations require the shop to close one and a half hours before landing. (Does anyone regulate anything worth regulating these days?) I return to my seat and drop into it with a sigh.

We're almost over Boston, with less than an hour left before landing. A flood of memories of my years in Boston wash over me: thoughts of autumn foliage and winter snows, lobster-diving in Gloucester, sweltering summers on the Charles River, our annual pilgrimage to the Boston Pops' Fourth of July concert, dinners in the frigid air-conditioning of restaurants on tops of skyscrapers. Faces not seen for a decade. I feel the tension between Boston and San Francisco - I love both cities, each for their seemingly mutually-exclusive characteristics. We're crossing the Cape Cod National Seashore Park, less than a hundred miles south and east of Boston. I remember driving here in the summer in a rental car, a distance that seemed on the edge of possibility. (How suprized I was when I first arrived in California, and saw the distances I'd have to cover to scuba-dive or climb in the hills. Now I travel three times the distance to the Cape in a single round trip to Yosemite.)

Rather than being opressive, or burdensome, my memories of Boston are quite comforting right now, like a well-worn jacket. I think ahead to the next few days: spending time with my parents (divorced, but living near each other), calling the west coast and seeing about K, playing with my new PowerBook 5300 (did it arrive?), visiting New York City. The three days until I step on a jet bound for San Francisco seem far away indeed, and seemingly destined to be filled with all sorts of hectic activities. A cautious optimism gently and tentatively returns, timid step by timid step. We're crossing over from Massachusetts into Rhode Island; twenty-five minutes to go.

The passengers begin their pre-landing brownian motion. Some prematurely don their shoes, a few make a last-minute dash to the head. The seat-belt indicator is turned off, after being on during turbulence brought on by serving breakfast and hot coffee. I realize that I'm no longer thinking to myself in German, but that English has returned, albeit tentatively. It's 10 C (53 F) at JFK, according to the disembodied voice that pierces the quiet murmur of passengers. For the last three months I've been in hot, hot weather; I'm looking forward to long pants, sweatshirts, jackets. My comforter at home is huge and cozy - my cat and I love crawling under it to escape foggy San Francisco evenings. Only four days until I hear your meow, Copernicus.

We're between Providence and Newport, Rhode Island. Nineteen minutes to go. The plane begins its familiar herky-jerky. The flight attendent tells me it's time to shut off all electronic devices.

John F Kennedy

After a bit of running around I find my Dad. The air has a wonderful chill: 37 F instead of 37 C. As we get into the car I find out that it didn't arrive. On the way home we stop off at Dr Borovska's place for another pleasant dinner. I sleep from 0200 to 1000.

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