The Dearly Departing

In bravery born of exhaustion, as the end of school approached we set the date for the trip, rented our house out, found a house to rent in London, and gave notice at work. We said our goodbyes to friends, neighbors, co-workers, and thesis advisors, and handed in our final thesis to Linda, the Associate Dean of the program at school. Five days later we were headed for London.

Friends of my mother-in-law, long-time world travelers, gave me the best practical advice concerning travel I’ve ever received. “The more you travel,” Mrs. Bloom had said, “the less you take.”

Arriving at the back loading area of United, we had two suitcases each and our cat Grommet in his carrier. That, we thought, ought to hold us for a year. Anything else we might need we could buy over there.

The agent at the loading dock looked at Grommet’s oversized carrier. Hitching one black eyebrow a half inch higher than the other, he said, “you know, that crate is about twice as big as required.”

But Grommet looked awfully small and we felt even smaller. The carrier was just big enough for his litter box, a little bed to sleep in, his food and water, with room left over to assuage our guilt about making him fly as cargo—the only way he was allowed to fly according to animal regulations. But they settled his paperwork and took him in back to load him into the hold of the plane.

Then it was our turn to be processed through the airport grindery. Was there ever a time when people enjoyed flying? It seems so far removed nowadays.

Standing in front of the Security inspector shoeless, beltless, coatless, I’d just turned all the coins out of my pockets, like a homeless man proving he had enough money to convince the cop he wasn’t a vagrant.

A hundred of us were drifting in line, unhumaned by transnational fears. In a time when even shoes are lethal, security is illusory. Everyone is suspect, and security depends on illustrating rather than actually proving your innocence.

Travelling is about seeing other lives, other worlds. But when travel begins at the airport the first, last, and overpowering thought is that it isn’t safe out there, stay at home. No borders should willingly be crossed. Everything about airline travel shouts, “Don’t Travel By Air, We Warned You!”

The line at airport security reminded me of the fruit conveyor belt where my friend Jim’s father used to work when we were kids. Jim’s father supervised the harvesting at a farm in Santa Clara. The workers there would toss bushel baskets of ripe berries onto long belts, which as they shook would rattle off bits of stems, bark, leaves, and dried bird crap, until at the far end was nothing but thoroughly shaken, gleaming, naked berries. Having been divested of shoes, socks, belt, wallet, keys, comb, watch, and small change, at San Francisco International Airport, there we were, fully processed and ready for shipment overseas.

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