Blog 2.
The journey starts today.
Incredible.
I am immediately wide awake and think of an old song. All this time, you have had it in you, you just sometimes need a push.
Where did that flash suddenly come from? No idea. But thank you, it means a lot right now. I add it to my emergency playlist to motivate me on the trail. There will be days…
Back in the present, I am flying down the Autobahn to the airport to hand over the house and car keys to my friend who will be house-sitting while I am gone. My excitement is short-lived as the traffic grinds to a halt. Then it’s stop and go until I arrive, later than planned. I do have time on my side for check in, it’s just that I just don’t like to keep my friend waiting. It turns out there’s a benefit to the delay though: just enough time to listen to the closing words of my audio book Dying to be Me by Anita Moorjani. They’re a parting gift:
She says: I wish you joy as you express yourself fearlessly in the world. Namaste.
They sink in.
Chills and hugs goodbye over, I settle in at the gate to await boarding. A beep from KLM – your flight to Amsterdam is delayed! But there‘s no ground staff yet. So I exit security and wind my way back to where I checked in. You can still make the connection to Osaka, just, if you run, they say, or Amsterdam can reroute you if you don‘t. It‘s your best option, we can no longer pull your luggage.
I accidentally sit in the wrong row on the City Hopper to find myself next to a young man, Chiki, also headed for Osaka. We are both anxious about the connection. He sets the pace at Schiphol for our 20 minute sprint from gate B to gate Z, passing through another passport control where miraculously there‘s no line. No, of course not, everyone is already on board for Osaka, they were boarding while we were still in the air.
Our lungs and throats are stabbing from the dry air as we almost keel over at the closing gate Z7, to face a dramatic decision. The man with the passenger list reports: Your bags did not make it onto this flight, so you can either stay in Amsterdam and get rerouted, or board now and wait for your luggage. It typically takes 3 days and we guarantee 5.
You‘ve got to be joking. Memories of my first ever trip to Japan, also landing in Osaka, twenty-some years ago, they lost one of my cases then and it took a week, so I believed him.
Young Chiki and I are a team now and one glance suffices. We board in haste. Sans baggages. We‘ll sort it out at the other end.
I tried to e-mail ahead to Japan but there was no wifi as the aircraft was leaving the gate. I thought of my mentor Dirk and texted a panicky SOS to him before flight mode. What would he say in this situation?
Shu-Gyo. Of course. He‘d say Shu-Gyo. The discipline side of my endeavour has begun. This is part of it. My O-Henro guidebook delivers the grace in one of the pilgrim oaths:
I will not complain if things do not go well while on the pilgrimage, but consider such experiences to be part of ascetic training.
No, that flight to Osaka was nothing like the one of my dreams. The flight crew could do nothing for the luggage and they felt sorry for me having to delay my first steps on the trail. I could not sleep, I could not read, so I breathed.
Disembarking, the crew gave me a good luck card signed by the team and said if I was lucky, my bag could have made the Seoul connection arriving tomorrow. That would be awesome, my spirits lifted.
Reason for entry to Japan: Not Business, not Vacation. This time I‘ve marked „Other“ on the form: O-Henro.
The passport officer is clearly impressed and gives me an encouraging „Ganbatte kudasai“ – Do your best.
I wait for Chiki and we go over to sort it out with a KLM member whose English is as good as my Japanese. „Bag not come… Ok, ok.“ She goes away.
When she returns she is pointing to the carousel and I see my suitcase among the others. It had made my flight after all and she had just made my day.
It‘s 11:11 as Chiki and I notice the time on our rainy busride to the city, still laughing in relief at our luggage miracle. I think of my best friend Roberta who sent me a lucky angel for this trip. It seems to be looking out for me.
As I can‘t check in at my hotel until 2 pm, I drop off the case and go out in the rain to find the famous Japanese outdoor shop Mont Bell, a mecca for lightweight equipment. Need help? asks a friendly Canadian seeing me looking a bit lost. Sure, I‘ll walk you there, he says and so starts a two-hour instant friendship with my personal shopper Quinn, teaching English here, just like I did all those years ago. We go for coffee and he, a seasoned blogger, helps me with some technicalities on my new phone, recommending a Follow option.
In the book I wrote last year, hoping to self-publish this year, there is a chapter on heroes. I felt I needed one then. But now that I am starting to show up for myself, it seems the Universe is injecting some hero energy into this trip too. I am amazed and I am grateful for all this support.
Back at the hotel, I am given room number 1111. You cannot make this stuff up. I hope Chiki is reading.
My Japanese teacher had not only put me in contact with Dirk, but also with her second cousin who lives in Osaka and who will look after my suitcase when I am out on the trail with my rucksack. We go out for sushi with her brother, who is fascinated by the notion of a blond female doing the trail. He can kind of get why Dirk did it – a strong male – but he drills me for information on why I’m doing it. Upon hearing the word „midlife“ he immediately gets it, nodding his understanding with a so, so, so, so, so, so. They know this takes courage. This brother and sister become family to me in that instant, they are only a phone call away, and they mean it.
All my new connections arising from this amazing pilgrimage, even before I‘ve placed my first foot on the ground in Shikoku, are… , well they’re It really. They are part of the future I am walking towards, leaving the past behind. This „connectivity“ is part of what it‘s all about.
I thought I‘d share with you my accidental selfie from the flight, trying to capture the sun rising in the East. Where once I‘d never have shown myself less than „perfect“, I now feel okay sharing imperfection – tired, worried, smeared mascara and all! 😉
Tomorrow I transfer to the island…
Sayonara for now.
x
Marion Gibson 