Grief clouds the senses but the world still turns
It’s been a hell of a six days. As far as hellish goes, this has been the burning inferno of a week. My plan in writing this was to not mention my mother’s death. Everyone experiences grief, and my grief is no worse or more profound than anyone else’s, but she died on Monday, and on Tuesday I thought the world was ending.
The world is still turning. People are still laughing and traffic is still interminable. Cars go past too fast, and I still think about calling the council and demanding speed bumps. Life goes on, even when I feel it should not. My left eye has still not recovered. I think I look drunk. I’m not. The thought of drinking seems incredibly disrespectful. I wonder about God, the afterlife, and the meaning of everything. I resent how horribly cruel life seems to become for some people.
It’s grief, and my thoughts are in no order. Nothing seems clear. It’s like I’m looking at the world trough a thick layer of polyurethane. The sun too bright. The rain too loud. The dog smells like ground pepper, and the idea of walking out the front door seems practically impossible, but I do.
A couple of days ago I had an appointment in Auckland. Something planned for a long time, and fairly critical for my career. I’m not entirely sure of the point of a career right now. Why do we work all our lives like somehow if we work more hours and toil a little longer than the next guy, it means we’ll win a magnificent prize for being the most-harried worker? It’s all a bit silly.
I decided to travel to Auckland on Thursday as planned. I got myself to the airport. I didn’t make the sarcastic comment I wanted to make when asked to take off my Doc Martens to pass through security. I desperately wanted to say: ‘‘With Covid, and everything plague-related, don’t you think worrying about my ankle-high footwear a bit 2001? Are we really to be concerned about middle New Zealand stowing explosives in their boots? Really?’’
But I didn’t. I put on my pinksequinned face mask, which I hoped would disguise my grief in all its sparkle, and shuffled towards my seat. 18C (clearly not a Gold Elite flyer any more). Not as simple as it seemed. Despite being instructed by the Air NZ ‘voice’ to board rows 1-16 through the front entrance, and the rest of us to go across the tarmac and up the back stairs, humans being humans cocked it up completely, and dipsticks seated in the back boarded from the front and viceversa, thus causing a Mexican standoff around about row 20, with passengers, flight attendants, and rule-breakers all tussling to get where they were meant to be in giant pushing, shoving, bag-swinging mess.
When finally I’d squished, and been squished, for a ridiculous amount of time, and I’d had time to ruminate about the low collective IQ of people boarding a plane, I arrived at my seat only to discover it was occupied. Of course it was.
‘‘Excuse me,’’ I said in a muffled voice. ‘‘Excuse me,’’ I tapped the man on the shoulder politely. ‘‘I believe you’re in my seat.’’
He hadn’t heard me. My mask and the sound of crying children meant the man sitting quite comfortably in my allotted seat didn’t hear me. The plane was full. Had it not been, I would have been happy to just collapse into any empty spot. I spoke up a little louder, and tapped his shoulder a little more rigorously. ‘‘I’m so sorry, but I believe you’re in my seat.’’
The man looked at his ticket and, without looking at me, said, ‘‘I am in the wrong seat. Sorry.’’ He got up, and against the flow of the passengers trying to go the right way, and the sheeple trying to go the wrong way, he squeezed into the aisle and moved to his unfortunate seat by the window two rows forward. As he turned I clocked that I had just evicted New Zealand’s greatest-ever All Blacks coach, Sir Graham Henry, from my seat.
I was lost between fangirl-ing and mortification. It was like I’d asked the Queen to move her Land Rover out of my parking spot. I sat down, put on my seat belt, grabbed a copy of the inflight magazine, fished about in my handbag for glasses, and promptly realised that a face mask causes instant lens fog.
It seems humour, irony, and awkward moments are a constant. Life doesn’t stop being ‘lifey’ because someone you love dies. Kiwi heroes get their seats mixed up. People don’t listen to instructions. Doc Martens are a ludicrous choice for air travel. Cars go too fast down suburban streets. Air New Zealand safety videos still seem to last at least 20 minutes. Life rolls on until it doesn’t and grief comes in tiny waves and giant tsunamis.
It’s been a hell of a week.
‘Life doesn’t stop being ‘lifey’ because someone you love dies.’