Bi-City Living

My best friends know how very little I like to live with, and how very light I often travel.

Today/yesterday, I take traveling light to a whole new level.  I have a 15:25 Heathrow Express, 17:10 KLM (Amsterdam-bound), 21:00 KLM (Denpasar, via Singapore) to catch.

And guess what... after I cleaned up the flat, hung laundry in the sun?   I realized, I didn't need to pack any bags at all!  Gosh.  All I needed were simple toiletries for the flight, something to read, a little bit of cash, and my passport for this journey!

15:10, August 6, Paddington Station

It's a little disorientating to be without The Faithful Wolf, Bruno Chan.  My mind keeps straying to him... I also keep thinking, he should be here with me.  After 5 weeks of lugging, hauling, carrying, foraging, I can't believe all I have to be responsible for in the next few hours, is myself, and a light carry-on.  My hands are free.  I wish I was holding Bruno's lead and carrying the Pod.

15-16 hours later, it is August 7, 15:40hrs in Singapore.  I hurry off the plane, change pounds into Singapore dollars, hop into a cab, and my daughter is home to smother me with hugs, kisses, and LURVE.  Angel the Beloved is also home.  

16:00, August 7, Martin Road

He's looking very well, put on a bit of necessary weight.  Oh Angel!

My husband gets home from work slightly before 18:00 hrs.  He feeds us dinner, heads back to work.  He tells me I am too thin.  I tell him, I have been doing manual labor in London.

I think he is very wise.  A long time ago, he asked me to give up New York City for, him.  I did that because the choice of marriage and a returning to Singapore scared me more than my dancer life in New York City.  I like to think, that sometimes the best way to overcome fear is by dealing with it head on, even if fear paralyzes you, or blows up in your face.

I think the unspoken promise that laid between the lines of his proposal was that someday, somehow, we would not grow old in Singapore, and we would relocate.  Well, it's been almost 18 years.  The last time, we relocated, I went back to graduate school in the US, and we ended up with the wondrous task of finding each other again, and rebuilding a marriage.

I know we are the same people that we were in 1995, holding hands, racing across Central Park in the blistering cold.  But we are not the same couple that wedded in the fall of that year.  I really like who we are now.  It's taken a lot of work.  It still takes effort.  I don't think we have every answer and possibly never will.  But truly an expression of his wisdom has been his sense of  timing.  He never lets go, and then he says- go, you have to go. 

I think he sends me across still waters knowing that with his push, I would paddle far, paddle hard.  Then I simply turn back.

My Wise Man  XXOO

The Show Must Go On

We get to Changi International Airport 2.5 hours ahead of departure time.  Everyone at the airport (Singaporean staff mind you) was super nice, polite and kind.  No one actually seemed to ever have experienced a dog traveling in- flight with a passenger, meaning that many are unsure about the protocol.  The flight is terribly full.  I am assigned a hideous seat.  KLM pulls a rabbit out of a hat and reassigns me.  Security smiles and smiles at Bruno.  Note- at all points, I don't bother putting him in his bag, and simply just walk him through.  It feels incredibly natural for me, walking with my dog, through Changi Airport halls.  I stay calm.  Burno stays calm.

All the paperwork required from ground staff at this point is the AVA export permit.  I am asked for this repeatedly.  

We board the plane.  I greet the passengers seated around me and ask if they mind a dog.  No one kicks up a fuss.  Everyone simply smiles at us.  There is a human baby on board making more noise than the slightly confused, un-sedated Bruno.  I keep Bruno on my lap.  He settles down to sleep.

Our luck runs out just as he falls asleep.  A flight attendant comes over and tells me that Bruno is not allowed on my lap.   Bruno has to be in his bag throughout the flight.  I reluctantly give Bruno the "inside" command.  He obliges.  He receives a treat.

During take-off, sudden air turbulences and during landing, Bruno is a superstar.  He stays calm.  Intermittently during the flight, Bruno whimpers, cries.  I bend over and console him.  Sometimes, I offer no solace.  Bruno gets upset, and attempts clawing his way out of the bag.

Twice during the flight, when others are fast asleep, I take Bruno to the bathroom, lay potty pads on the ground, let him out of his bag.  I feed him, give him some water.  Then I urge him back in.  Bruno does not potty both these times.  The second time, he refused to return to the bag at will.  I let him stay out longer, and then shove him in.

At all times, I keep my feet right next to the mash panel of his bag.  I try and stroke him with my feet.  Sometimes this soothes.  Sometimes it doesn't. 

The first tour I did with my dancers at the Melbourne Fringe Festival back in 1999, E punches me in the face, unintentionally, during the final athletic number.  I spend the next 5 minutes dancing full on with my nose bleeding, my eyesight blurry.

The show must go on, regardless.  At some point, the 13-hr flight will conclude.  All I can do is keep my energy calm, try and rest up if I can, and hope that by some process of osmosis, Bruno will also quit fighting confinement, and settle down to sleep.