Good morning. I'm here in Sydney on what was-- for 15 hours-- a pretty painless flight. Sydney is one of the easiest airports I've ever visited. Baggages were available in 3 minutes, customs had more tellers than people, immigration had no waiting and took my raw almonds. I was on the other side within 7 minutes.
I had a lovely encounter last night in LAX. I'm off in a corner trying to invisibly stretch, when this short, plain looking older (than me) woman approaches me. I think she wants to use the corner for stretching, too. But, instead, she looks down and kind of grunts and motions for me to turn around. Then she begins to massage my back, neck and shoulders. Just starts rubbing in a loving but non-threatening way... just takes care of my stressful business. I feel like crying-- overcome with gratitude, resisting the urge to turn her around and to say, "here-- your turn" and, of course, massage her for longer than she did me. To show I'm really grateful. But instead, I just stood there, a bit embarassed, a lot grateful, and just accepted her gesture. Then she had me take 7 deep breaths. And, at the end, we hugged, and she just slipped away. I wanted to weep! So tired and so stunned and tickled by the random act of kindness. It felt awesome. I recommend you do this for someone immediately. Careful-- if they are middle-aged women, they will likely weep.
I'm in a daze, and still trying to figure out what exactly I'm doing here. What did I expect-- some life altering transformation would await me on the other side of the world? I haven't yet started at the beginning of the story, but I have to say that I'm a bit jet lagged, so I'll offer the longer version after a few sips of coffee and a stroll to lovely harbours.
The average age is about 20 in this hostel. People are saying "dude" and "like" a lot. My dorm room has 4 beds lined up like a warm, friendly concentration camp. One small pillow, saggy bedding. The receptionist intimidates me. I'm too old for this, mates. 45 is not the time to go find yourself.
(Heard 5 "dudes" in the time it took to type this.)
Take care, love to all. Um... g'day?
love susie
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