December 17, 2007

• a momentary connection

  LONDON, ENGLAND | HEATHROW TERMINAL FOUR, GATE ONE BRITISH AIRWAYS LOUNGE è

  sometimes you just feel it, even with a total stranger, riding the piccadilly line to heathrow terminals one, two, and three.

  i feel quite spoiled.  i’m sitting in the british airways gate one lounge, having just finished a hearty lunch of mixed greens salad, pasta primavera, and bacon and egg sandwich bites.  served myself a vodka diet, and am finishing off with chocolate and fig pie.  on my flight across the atlantic, i received a complimentary upgrade to business class, my first ever experience on a lay-flat bed on an international flight.  then once in london, i reconnected with some of my best and coolest friends, even getting most meals and incidentals paid for by my dear host yune.  here’s a link to some of the weekend’s highlights, including taz’s phenomenal indian dinner birthday at st katherine’s docks.

  forty-eight hours was not enough.  not, at all, enough.  although, as yune correctly observed, “we’ve basically done a hastened version of what we normally do when you’re here.”  so true.

  now, i board flight ba81 to accra, ghana where i meet up with fellow gsb’ers justin and justina.  they decided, after visiting lome, to cancel our trek through togo and instead traverse northward direct to burkina faso.  so be it — my adventures in africa start tonight, at the crystal hostel in the center of accra.

  when my mother dropped me off at the sfo airport a few days ago, we had a bit of a heart to heart and i couldn’t help but well up with a few tears.  it’s unbelievable, but she is 61.  my father, 66.  sometimes i forget how much they have sacrificed to support me.  i forget that they are people too, in addition to being parents.  my father got ill this past week and my mother admitted she misses her father sometimes, who passed away when he was 45.  “so all i remember of him is that he was young, just young.”  my heart wrenched.

  while at jfk, i caught up with an old ex of mine.  somehow i just know deep down inside that, despite the ridiculous curiosities of our oft-criticized relationship, she will be someone i know and will want to know for life.  i find that pretty comforting.

  folks, while i was able to send out a few christmas cards this season, i had no time whatsoever to continue the joymix tradition with a 2007 version.  unfortunately, i might have to go back to academic year timing, i.e. 2007-2008.  i know that’s unclassy but deal with it.  also, if you are my friend and didn’t receive a christmas card, it’s not because i didn’t want to send one but because i didn’t have your mailing address.  so send it along when you can.  i’ll send you warm tidings from ghana.

  it’s now 1329, according to windows.

  so much has gone through my head in the past few days.  it’s like i was emotionally constipated for the past few weeks with the craziness that is business school, and job searching, and final exams.  now that i’m my usual self again, ruminating and documenting, analyzing and pontificating, i can relax and sit and listen to uplifting music as i jet through kensington and hounslow.  i can think of video montages i’d like to create.  i think of travels, and journaling, and photography.

  i think i’m coming back to london.

   

  • 8:31 am
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