Rotten Yesterdays

At last both are asleep, deeply, somewhere just beyond Zanzibar.  The AirLink flight was fine without checking, the transfer desk yielded a conversation with 46-year-old Logan who loves the mountains and is just passing through en route to Seattle, but critically the bassinet, and the diner by the gate offered the chance to see Mbappe.  But again I missed the signs, how I don’t know.  The fear set in again, of the worst case scenario.  I didn’t even see it until my sampling of the first half of the wine, and the f-bombs, the God of Stupid, the low blows, so to speak.  Then all about damage limitation, instead of joining the euphoria of knowing that the “going” part is soon done, and “being in” has arrived.  That short window to enjoy before the past tense appears of a sudden to speak his piece forevermore.

How to raise it at the outset of the trip without spoiling the massive day ahead, the kickoff now less than 18 hours from what you’ve schemed for, all through 2022 and before.  Maybe just to prove a point, that something as absurd and exotic and fitting for you can be done despite the birth of the baby boy.  How finding out that it mostly enhances everything, deepens the planning in ways that push the limits of absurdity to new and entertaining heights.  

S. was right, it must be admitted.  You are about the story.  Not at the expense of not caring deeply about the characters, of course.   But the plot gets the blood racing, the good stuff Homi spoke of so long ago now.

So I’m left a bit stuck, how to “Goya Goya” through it in my own mind and stomach so it doesn’t grind away at me.  How to register the discomfort and desire for it to end.  So chance across random lines from Ralph Waldo, “Finish every day and be done with it.”

Greet the day with too high a spirit to be cambered by your old nonsense.  Indeed.  Try.  Follow the son’s meditative advice.  This word - which you knew how to spell as soon as you heard it and which he started speaking early days and keeps returning to in the same comforting moments, in a pattern of three.

This is going to be a tough day, so let’s not make it tougher.  Smile and move forward.  You are here.  The dream in your heart.  Now we just have to navigate our way to the stadium and watch the boys find a way to win…

Goya Goya Goya

The continuing education on dealing with uncertainty and panic and matters far beyond human control… remember the frantic running back and forth through immigration controls, on the brink of a mistake and then realizing the true cost of being stuck in Dubai without Visa or available shuttle flight...  

Planning in the face of external constraints and internal worry/panic, all the while dealing with the unknowing infant and the balancing of relationship tensions over salon styling, packing, and miscommunications, words spoken past each other in the fog of white noise.  It’s chance.  In many ways.  I have to ask Dad about that saying from the old yearbook.

As you type on the Southern Sun shuttle back to the airport for the second run, on the roadside are unmarked cement gravestones waiting to be sold and engraved.  Passing Syax FC.  The best is yet to come.  Like the Twitter commentator who posted that Tomorrow is always the favourite football memory.  These are all moments that are part of a buildup that began in 2012 and the dream of Brazil more than a decade ago, culminating in tomorrow.  No need to flight track obsessively any more.  The sun is shining, this is the route, the Chestern Lodge “place you’d rather be”

Yesterday amidst the worry and frustrations, when you took AA out of the apartment for a walk to settle the anxieties, the little man sat quietly and at the end of a dusty crimson brown dirt road, three young kids were having a kick-about with a deflated green football.  Bricks for goals, the two smaller guys against a slightly bigger and rotund one still in his school uniform, buttoned up Oxford blue and navy shorts.  The young guys getting the better of him, wheeling away in delight at the goals.  

The game has not been officially around for that long compared to the overall span of civilizations, but it feels that way as a world traveller.  Universality.

“It’s fun to think of all the characters we’ve come across this trip.”  And you think about all the interactions, fleeting and important, from Mirriam and our collective past, in transit, over food, in restaurants, hotels, everyone playing out there own part and roles.  Such a vast and incomprehensible existence.

Like the guy at breakfast today, who upon hearing the Tongan bull was going, said, perfectly, in that African-accented English: “He has to be there.  He has the prescence to change the whole thing.”

I refrained from looking up the Airlink plane location, and there she is, what a beauty.  Prayers to the God of the second chance.  And much more from the desert.  

Where you should try and more fully take in the lesson your son is trying to teach in his serenity now mantra.  Goya.  Preach.

Ask the Hippo

Sometimes you just look at the guy and remember he’s a human being that will grow up to have his own dreams and adventures, disappointments and outrageous successes.  Other times that is overwhelming, you cannot understand the future but just see the present moment, the smile or the sleep or the tears and wonder what is going on in the brain that very moment.

Innocent’s friends incomprehensible catchphrase as good as any.  That guy is so like his mom, conscientious and fun-loving, sly and humble, sociable and generous, industrious and happy to the core.

We are one week from RwandAir, and the dream of Qatar.  Remember the excitement, the work calls from Kozo, the heat of the Zambian sun, the spa and the chicks and the inexhaustible resource of water from the earth that you funded.  Seeing it flow, incredibly rewarding.  

Life is good here in Zambia as the cotton anniversary arrives tomorrow.  Who would have imagined it all transpiring exactly like this?  I would not change it.  Oh the fun to be had in the days ahead!

Into Africa

And what a go-ahead it was to get here.  Wine-fuelled packing and a 3:30AM wakeup to cancelled flights and no good options.  The epic Toronto fog led to one of the most convoluted and expensive of approaches, culminating in a late night car rental and overnight drive from Ottawa to Pearson.  Ridiculous addition to the annals of the traveling capers.  Add to that the luggage missing its connection, the rebooking of a Foreshore hotel and then the pilot strike cancelling the direct to Livingstone.  A day late all around, it seems, but we made it and AA rolled through it all with aplomb, finding the right Zen moments for sleep to take the pressure off his parents.

That has been needed, unfortunately.  Something is not quite clicking this time yet, not sure how to address or approach, as any comment has the potential to set off a processing explosion.  Self control,  wonderful, failures to listen or understand, the sleeplessness dragging everything and alcohol combustible - strangely you not being the one to worry about.  

In any case, the Falls yesterday a dream, the hosts here at Royal welcoming you back as ever.  So much accomplished in two years since the first arrival it defies belief.  The little smiler charming all comers, the animals popping up in unexpected quarters, the pool refreshing, and the cheap gin hitting the amygdala just so.  Hopefully it comes good for Mama.  Maybe there's a nervousness, maybe a homesickness coming back, maybe insecurity, maybe husband just too annoying.  Work on it, buddy.

Time to go take a picture of some Zebras by the pool...  it will turn out.  How will it?  I don't know, it's a miracle.

24 hours to Flip Board Schedules on Heads

The Day of the Dead, and how fortunes change.  It seemed almost impossible to imagine everything coming together on the work front, then on the drive home from Peggys we call William Blake to find out about a delay in the GRA submission to allow for a restful Halloween, and then... to top it off... after a lovely few hours with Mr. AA at the car maintenance while Mama celebrates a graduation, in comes the Board's witness to postpone tomorrow's hearing as well.  Who would have imagined it, except your lovely wife, who looks out for you and has a charm and depth of wisdom of which there is no doubting.

Bottle #1 has gone down nicely, as you realize the World Cup is 20 days away, and your flights begin in less than 36 hours, and the year leading into it has just been exceptional.  So many moments and memories to look back on.  How to pause and revel in each.  And in the ones to come.  To let them drag.  That must be the goal of the next few weeks.  Paternity time would have been excellent, but maybe the way is to time it with the time M needs to restart the career?  It will be a long road but you cannot doubt her in the least.  She will find her way.  

Shocking to see both of these processes morph to a schedule that will just about work, and allow for a more seamless and coordinated departure.  Might even get the neighbour on the scaffolding to get the job done?  All remains to be seen and nothing, nothing impossible.  

I find I'm so excited.  Of all the trips.  This one.  I mean, it will have everything.  Sit back and relax.  The smiles and giggles of this little guy are out of this world.  To bring him back to where it began, twice over, is exactly in keeping with what was destined to be done, but earthshaking all the same.

Near escapes and yet clear sailings.  The future ahead, and a 1961 bottle as well.  Roll on.  It keeps getting better.