Taking Flight
Dec. 14th- Blog #5
Recently, I was on one of my trips up to Auckland from Wellington to meet with the clinical trial team for my blood cancer treatment. It was a way-too-early in the morning flight, and most people, like myself, looked like they were still trying to wake up. We all shuffled along to the gate, some chugging a last-minute coffee before boarding if lucky enough to grab one along the way. It was a packed flight, and I was very happy to have a window seat so I could lean into the wall and close my eyes in an attempt to block out the stifling feelings I often experience when travelling. As I sat there watching the last passengers squeeze down the aisle to their cramped seats, I noted two rather large Pacifica men make their way past and into seats not far behind me. I remember thinking to myself, “Gosh, they are gonna be miserable in these tight little seats”. But seconds later, giggling burst out, I don’t know, I imagined they were giggling because of how ridiculous it must have been for them to squish into their seats and buckle in. It brought a smile to my heart to hear these two grown men giggle like schoolboys. I wondered whether they were related or just colleagues on a business trip together. They quieted down as the plane was asked to give the flight attendants their attention before takeoff to go over health and safety protocols.
Once in the air, I closed my eyes and let my mind wander and wonder how my appointment was going to go today. I was likely to be taken off the clinical trial because I had a bad run of it. Long story short, my dreams of getting a quick temporary fix was not going to be in my cards quite yet. Sitting there, I thought about how all these health delays kept me from getting my book to the finish line. And there are so many little things to wrap up before I send it off to the printer- I've decided to do a small print run of my own to get the ball rolling, which is exciting but also means I have to handle tasks like indexing, meeting with a copyright/IP lawyer, getting an ISBN number for print and digital versions, formatting for cheaper print and digital versions, book cover design, fact-checking, etc. (shout out to my lovely fact-checkers- Brigitte Yorke, Brian Van’t Hul, and Mellissa Spicer). So this and more, all on my own instead of relying on a publisher. I'm so close to being there now, painfully so. It's like being in a crowded plane after a very long flight, and it's taking forever for the people at the front of the plane to get off for some reason. You feel like you're going to burst from anticipation. Well, that's what publishing this book feels like sometimes.
Anyway, just as my thoughts were starting to consider a rabbit hole, they were broken by the giggling again. The giggling that grew into full-on snorting laughter. I could not make out what they were saying completely because they were two aisles behind me, and a lot of what they were saying was in broken sentences of “ oh man, can you believe….laugh laugh snort “ I know I know and”...giggle laugh followed by a snort “And then Auntie…” so on and so forth. This went on for most of the flight. Two mature, huge guys, laughing with reckless abandon. What a treat! It lifted my mood substantially and, in my mind, became a beacon of what is possible to experience in this day and age, when so much negativity is thrown about with reckless abandon. Carless consumption and regurgitation of blame and hate-mongering saturate so much of our social and political climate. Why can't it turn to careless consumption and sharing of joy? Even if only for forty-five minutes in the sealed world of a plane, joy found its way through the cabin. Two grown men, laughing not with cruelty or bravado, but with unguarded silliness, they gave themselves over to it completely. They didn’t care how it looked, or whether it was cool or ridiculous; they let the laughter rise until it carried them away. And somehow, it spread. The crew moved a little lighter, the people nearby softened, and the air itself seemed less heavy. I know I felt it. Like negativity, joy is contagious—perhaps even more so, if we let it be.
The book is getting there, soon, very soon, I hope to be reporting that it is being printed and will be available to you all. But in the meantime, let's give flight to our giggles, so they might surface into deep, snorting, carefree, stress-relieving laughter as we keep on keeping on our journeys, whatever they might be.
-Therese Eberhard
