Get me on a Plane Please
I arrived in Taipei. I’d been travelling through South East Asia for a few months after living in Sydney for a year. My only cash source was a cracked visa card. The only reason I went to Taipei was that the daughter of one of my dad’s best friends’ was there, and she was making fat cash, and I was broke.
My guitar (yup) and I landed. I’m not sure how it is now, but at the time the Taipei airport was the most barebones international airport I’d ever seen and travel had always been part of my life. I needed a bank, not a bank machine. I needed to call Samantha to connect (dad’s friend’s daughter). There was no bank, and again, my card was cracked, and this airport was brutal. Update: I just researched what it looks like now—different.
So, I sat on the floor for a while. I managed to make a single call to her house, but it got disconnected. And so I sat. I was there for several hours. I tried to talk to the information desk, but they didn’t have any solutions to a bedraggled a-hole western young person. So, I sat. At one point, there was a nun. And I considered her. I could go up, tell her the situation, maybe she spoke English, and she could lend me enough to get to where the hell I was supposed to go, and I could pay her back—but I didn’t have the moxie.
To be fair, I have never found airports stressful. To me, they are calming “we’re all waiting” for once we all have something in common places. But I was stumped. For a solid five hours, I just sat and did nothing. In retrospect, maybe I should have launched into my “All I want is you” or “Lola” or “Redemption Song” on the guitar. I did not.
The man in a well-tailored, sleek suit approached me. I was cross-legged on the floor. “Excuse me, but you don’t have any money,” he said. I nodded. He handed me a bill, bowed and left. It was the equivalent of $50 and solved everything. Sam’s roommate picked me up on his scooter an hour later. I paid that forward in Rarotonga a few years later. But it’s stayed with me. As more recently, has the intense privilege of so many incredible travel experiences I have 500% enjoyed.
Apart from the helpers, this memory reminds me of airports. I love airports. I love that everyone is waiting. I love the commonality. I love the structure, the beauty, the function. I love getting on a plane—I really love getting on a plane. The anonymity, the power in a pause before the adventure.
Travellers and tourists. Maybe that distinction is extinct. I used to vehemently possess the former. But meh. I read that trips will be more expensive, but you’ll have more room. So, we save more, and go for longer, and continue working remotely a bit in that time.
Deconstructing more than this as I’m reconstructing. I do really just want to get on a plane. Not back to Taipei, I prefer it how it remains in my heart.
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