(Plain) Plane Relationships

“I wouldn’t want you to want to be wanted by me

I wouldn’t want you to worry you’d be drowned within my sea

I only wanted to be wonderful

And wonderful is true,

In truth I only really wanted to be wanted by you.”

I always loved plane conversations. Plane conversations are really, truly, most definitely an unforgettable experience. Unless you happen to be sitting next to someone lucky enough to be able to fall into deep sleep and then not wake up until the artificial bird carrying you both on its wings just falls flat on the earth. Boom, wake up you little polar bear, you are not dead yet. Wake up.

So yes, plane conversations are such a special species of Conversations that it is worth exhausting all your limited energy to participate fully in them. You’ll play the talker, you’ll play the listener, you’ll alternate, I promise it will all feel like a wonderfully simple and brief (love) relationship with the person keeping you company during your – possibly last – journey of life. It doesn’t matter whether you are sitting next to your worrying mum or a worrying stranger praying to Holy Mary, Holy Jesus, to every Holy Angel of Earth and Sky for a safe landing on that sometimes dull place called earth. Just as if going to heaven is actually a scenario from hell.  Or whether you are sitting next to an old lady – a complete stranger to you – telling you all these creepy stories about every time her now dead (although hopefully not in a plane crash) husband got her flowers, about all the crazy things her unbearably naughty grandchildren do on Christmas day or Valentine’s day or on days when she just wants to go to bed. It doesn’t matter whether you are sitting next to someone who very rarely opens up to anyone but himself or whether you are unfortunate enough to be chained to your chair next to the biggest gossiper in town, earth, universe, you name it.

It’s strange what a little bit of atmosphere can do to the human mind – without any candlelight, without any decorative glasses of wine at all. So as soon as oxygen levels drop down and sense of time is suspended, everyone seems to get into this absurdly confessional mood. Even those who despise the benefits of psychoanalysis seem to voluntarily surrender to your hypnotic power of understanding, to your ethereal presence as the last human being they may ever see.

During my last trip, I sat next to a very distinguished figure. My sister. With whom I had spent most of my Christmas holiday, perhaps to the damage of both of our nervous systems. But although we had a lot of time to dig deep in our wounds during our lazy, sunny Christmas days on an island where everyone revolves so slowly around themselves and a couple of other people, we just preferred to watch TV instead. And compete on who would eat most chocolate. Ferrero Rocher is hardly the type of chocolate you only get in airports these days, so there was an abundance of it to munch on in place of breakfast. More chocolate means less talking.

But once we were in the air – or should I say ON air considering the large number of familiar faces who happened to be travelling with us – we began to turn years of anger into a therapeutic conversation. As the pitch of our voices rose from excitement, I was reminded that two seemingly opposite in character people may actually share the same values. Sometimes even – although not in our case – people strangely share the same values without necessarily sharing the same upbringing. So somewhere in the middle of nowhere, above the barely-recognisable blue of an ocean or sea or lake that I couldn’t even bother locating on a map, we got passionate about all the discontenting things people do when they want to make an impression on others. All the sources of insecurity that drive all those self-centred creatures to reducing others to tears. Of course, she let go of her anger through swearing in the most hilarious manner, while I spurt out all that cynicism I usually restrain within my facial muscles, my raised eyebrow, my half-smile.

And I began to remember that we people may be different in terms of interests and preferences, but most often than not we carry similarly well-hidden wounds, we feel threatened in similarly unfriendly environments, we share the same parts of the brain that trigger negative feelings when others put us down. Various faces of strangers I once encountered on planes, on trains, in streets, in lifts began to come back to me. You know, I always thought we all have parts of our hearts with friends we will never meet again, with strangers who happened to become our friends for an hour or two. I always tried to imagine people walking in the street parallel to my home address, hoping they were also thinking, for no more than a brief second, of all the deep confessions I once deposited in their bank-hearts. Isn’t it true after all that confessing secrets only requires a brief moment of trust, the right atmosphere and the right timing? I don’t know why, but it seems that I was always prone to falling in love with beautiful minds even if I never had the intention of creating any type of physical bond with them. I was always prone to feeling disappointed with all those who grab a piece of me with them without ever returning to confirm “yes, you are occasionally one of my thoughts when my mind drifts away in planes”. I forgive. But I still feel like a fool sometimes for getting drunk on the right atmosphere and getting carried away into believing I have found one more soul to hold my soul so that I can hold theirs too. Does it really matter that they ran away? Didn’t I run away with their thoughts too? Didn’t I?

In so many ways the theft was mutual.

It seems to me that sometimes we just want to be wanted. You can call it nature, evolution or even devolution in this modern world of isolation. The truth is we will never know why we want what we want. It’s just what we want.

And so it is… The shortest story, no love no glory. In truth I only really wanted to be wanted by you. 

Cheers to those who enjoy pretending they can see through other’s eyes. And to the thousands of stories taking place in their minds.

 

 

Telling Stories: On the fable of Time (Part 1)

“And I’m beyond your peripheral vision

So you might want to turn your head

Cause someday you might find you’re starving

And eating all of the words that you said.”

Before I tire you out, before I eat away both your time and mine, singing odd lyrics that don’t seem to provide much context, let me just quickly tell you that for the last year I have been humming this song for approximately 80% of my time (outside sleeping hours). So I wonder if I should officially announce Ani Difranco’s 32 Flavours as the theme song for the now dead-and-gone but never forgotten 2013. Or the theme song for 2014. As time ticks away, I write down 2013 and then 2014 and then scribble 32 next to each, wondering which two numbers look better on paper. I read and reread while time ticks away like an enemy, holding its knife against my chin, counting my pointless words, my drops of sweat, my minutes left till surrendering to Sleep.

 23:32.

I start thinking I need to share my thoughts with an audience. Maybe giving more people the key to my mind can help me come up with answers much faster. Then again… Maybe not. If I make copies of the key, will I paralyse in the sound of hundreds of voices telling me what to do? Or will the voices ever teach me to pull the trigger when the countdown is dangerously approaching zero?

Hmm. I think I might as well eat all of the words I just said. If you don’t wish to call me Chloe, I’d settle with you calling me the ‘Time-Waster’ instead. I really do feel that this devised term is more accurate a description of myself than the utterly pretentious three words I usually use when introducing myself to very important strangers.

To get back on track (back to the Serious Side now), there is something that the time-wasters of this life know very well. Time is just like the horizon. You think you can see the end of the ocean, but in reality your (limited) vision is playing games with you. If you squint and look closer, you will find that the sea just merges into the sky and there is nothing more but an endless blue. But don’t be fooled into thinking there is no end. There is an end to all that blue, but it is not always in sight. There is an end to all games in fact, even if a single round of Monopoly can sometimes convince you otherwise. You will play many pointless games with Time over time. Yes, seemingly endless games with what appears to be – or rather what feels like – an invisible opponent. And the story will repeat itself. There will come a time, when you will realise that there were no winners or losers to start with. Winning was never the point of the game anyway. And at exactly the same time, on the exact second, your stressful game will come to an end. Your only serious, face-to-face encounter with Time is the one before the final blackout. How you’ve used your time in the meantime will determine whether you fade into nature as a winner or as a loser.

As a teenager, it once occurred to me to write at the end of a music book the following words: “The end. But, who is able to know if we’ve reached the end?” Perhaps, this was my first realisation that Time is an elusive idea or, in other words, that thinking of time and endings as fixed concepts is mistaken. That clocks are manmade, that there is a little bit of fiction in our understanding of time and that there is a little bit of irony in our belief that we can call something ‘History’ when stories clearly repeat themselves.

I know that there is no known end, at least that there is no end in sight for my personal book. I write every day using all sorts of colours and different types of inks, but I have stopped trying to figure out when and why I will want to put my pen down. The fable of Time may reveal its truer side to me one day. There is an equal probability, however, that I will never get wiser as I grow older, that my vision will never clear up.  I can live with that and I appreciate uncertainty for all that it is worth.

I feel free to waste my time as I wish, but I never ever want to be in the unfortunate position of having to wish my time away. So here is my wish for 2014.

Time is valuable my friends. I hope you never have to wish your time away. I hope you never have to pray that 2014 comes to an end. I hope that this year none of us will waste opportunities to show love and feel loved. 

Remember that we all deserve time well spent. And enjoy this (new) year.

Cheers to all time-wasters.

Just a beautiful photo of a girl that I found while wasting my time on Humans of New York. Feel free to find her story if you have some time to spare.