VIRGIN VOYAGE...

So here we are

Sat alongside one another. 13A and 13C. Both busy at our keyboards. Foreign territory to write about you whilst I can physically feel your warmth next to me. Both lost in creative thought; you most likely developing your book further while I still paddle around in the here and now. 

Just faintly aware of the differences in writing style, pace and momentum. You pause frequently to revisit. Touch your chin. Scratch. Okay - cough. And then back to the keys you go. Your every five or so words to my twenty. And as you would say, that is okay. Left hand to your face; much deeper in thought. Signals the need for an edit; rearrangement or rethought all together. You hit those keys with your own rhythm. Three fingers on the right and almost the same on the left. Mine fly across the alphabet. Free flowing and uncurbed. Total abandon. Less thought. No discipline. And with that, you turn to me and simply say, “I think I've just gone into flight mode.”  I smile. You have lasted way longer than I had anticipated. After all, we may have spoken briefly about our respective travelling styles. You have joked about drooling on me from several thousand feet. But it was me that was the first to be photographed, eyes closed. (Yes, MD. Delete that series, okay?)

You instruct me to wake you if there is anything interesting. I smile from the inside out. I have seen you sleep. I have felt you sleep. I have been in your sleep. You will be far away by now in a myriad of moving pictures; those that capture you and those that catapult you from a zillion thoughts to be processed to the next best thing. You have shared your inner workings of a mind that doesn’t sleep. A mind that is more raw, fervent and revealing perhaps than when in wake mode. When you are at the helm, steering this mighty ship of your mind, you work hard to keep those filters and social reflexes in check. But when asleep, there is most definitely a switch that cannot be flicked. A key to a chamber that hosts millions of shards of thoughts, dreams, visions and what may becomes.There have been multicoloured lacings of stuff and things; some of which you have shared with me upon your sudden waking. And there is no doubt. Your mind is extraordinary. 

So now you are sleeping; drifting somewhere far away as we hurtle across the hazy blues and wispy whites. Heading homeward to a place where our single lives will intermingle once again. I change the font back to dark so that I may read what it is that the fingers of my mind feel. A surprising self consciousness washed over me as I was so acutely aware of your presence next to me. The buffer of time and distance that usually falls between us when I write, simply evaporated. Because this is our virgin voyage. No longer a slice of life but a hearty chunk of time that we have spent side by side; together. As you said: 90 or so hours when we have not been more than 20 feet apart. 

Adelaide, Baby…

Seven minutes forty. You stir. I stop. I wait. You reach for your drink. Sip, yawn and recline and then straight back into the stretches of subconscious thoughts that lay out before you. 

Adelaide; it signifies so much. 

Your home. Your family. Your former you. Layers of a life that has held you somehow; both supported and constrained. An intricate weaving of experiences that have shaped you; driving you forward and perhaps even away from things that you no longer desire.

I have come to be with you. Here. Significant perhaps to walk alongside you. A journey to your past with a piece of your present right by your side. And I am in your present and I hope to remain here so that I can form part of your future. And to share our first trip together where you are letting me on the inside of part of you has been quite the thing. Friends, family, pictures, places - stuff and things. All that bear stories of youthful zealousness, love, freedom and a strong desire to belong and to be seen, mixed with smatterings of angst and poignant twists and turns in your life. Chance phrases that fall off your tongue before the filters frame your thoughts; yes, you are so much further along your life journey and you are okay with that. You have said that often. A gentle goodbye to some of the adolescent agitation that came before perhaps. And that’s okay. And as you have shared some of your childhood, I have watched you dance along the surface of your family.  A distance that keeps you feeling safe, perhaps. 

And when you feel safe, this tells me one thing. 

That you care. 

Our first chance to taste a chunk of life together. 

A serious sense of shared time. 

A virgin voyage just six months from when we first met.
It's Quite The Thing

Come walk alongside me some more