Now Voyager: Sydney departure

Am sitting in the Wellington airport international coffee lounge at six am waiting for my scheduled 7am Air NZ flight to Sydney. I am having an excellent Mojo coffee to send me off. If it's not Memphis Flight coffee, Mojo is excellent, and the barista knows her job.

I arrived one and a half hours early and It was a quick trip through automated everything to get my boarding pass and through immigration, all done with photos and computers, the only human there was to totally scan my body of all impurities before I was let through. You never forget 9/11 on international travel, nor any air travel if it comes to that. That searing image of the planes hitting the twin towers lies forever in my brain. The man scanning me is super-polite like all Kiwis and asked me where I was going, all the time passing the scanner up my inside trouser leg. He does it so professionally!

Last night I needed a diazapam at one am to get to sleep, which worked as always. Thank god for valium I say. The alarms rudely awakened me at four forty-five, the two of them, i-phone and clock, I am always nervous about using just one ever since I missed that memorable flight to Sydney from Melbourne on the day of my Mum's funeral. But this morning the house was black and cold so I quickly slotted into automatic departure mode, shaved, quickly made toast, had health drink, ignored the cat who was already cruising for an early breakfast, and finished my already packed bag ready to walk out the door at five fifteen for the ten minute drive and ten minute walk to the airport lounge.

It was a far cry from that morning eight years ago now, June 21 or thereabouts, when my diazapam, two of them this time, worked well and my phone didn't ring loudly enough for me and I slept through it, only waking to hear a plane overhead in downtown Melbourne. It was 7am and that noise was my plane disappearing. I was in emergency mode to get to the airport as Mum's funeral was at midday at Waverly in Sydney. It was one of those days when you have to invoke the supernatural, as there was no way I was going to miss my mother's only funeral so I had to plug in to some extra force. I had the key with my singing the HU. On that fateful morning I was shaved and out of Marisa's house in fifteen minutes flat, briskly walking while Hu-ing to Bourke Street to catch the tram to Southern Cross Station. I knew the quickest way was by public transport, it was just a matter of coordinating, and luck!

At the station the airport bus was just about to leave as I jumped breathlessly on and sat down still stunned at my being there. I was going to make it, I knew it. So on arrival I rushed to check-in and was told the next Sydney flight at eight-thirty was fully booked but they would put me on stand-by and not charge me extra after hearing my story. Thank you Virgin Blue Airlines! Well of course there was a cancellation and I took the last seat which was in the very back row and next to a charming Frenchman with whom I was able to have a chat on the way to Sydney. A quick phone call to my brother who had no idea of the unfolding drama, allowed me to alter plans and arrange a lift directly to get to the church instead of the earlier arrangements to meet at his place. Strangely he asked me no questions and just sent out a friend who was free to pick me up at ten-thirty giving me time to change in the airport loo into better clothes and when we actually arrived at the chuch we were the first ones there at about eleven-thirty. It was a lesson in setting alarms, but mainly in surrendering to the moment and through singing the HU allowing fate to take me there. I knew I could never miss my Mum's funeral, and I didn't. And that is why this Blogspot is entitled SingingHu.