Come Fly With Me

I recently had to travel interstate for work; something that I do on a semi-regular basis. I’ve never understood the jealousy this sometimes incites in people. I’ve often had comments of “ooh, you lucky thing!” Lucky? I’m not sure what exactly is lucky about a 4am wake up call; being crammed into a tiny seat with often very questionable neighbours; long, boring conferences; and dodgy hotel food. Different folks I suppose…

See how rested and happy and vibrant she looks? Yeah, that’s not me.
Image from academysuccess.com

For me, it is the early mornings that are my undoing. I’ve never been very good at getting out of bed, despite having fantasised about all the things I could be doing in the wee hours of the morning. I imagine the hours I could be spending writing, reading the paper or relaxing over a long, healthy breakfast but, despite my best intentions, I’ve never been able to make myself get up. In fact if, by some miracle, I were to achieve this end one of these days, I have a feeling I would end up scribbling foggy-headed nonsense with my Bircher muesli sandwiched between the newspaper and my face.

For those of you who may be thinking I haven’t given this a try, you would be wrong. During my school years when mornings were the only time to practice music and ballet, my tactic was to strategically place my 1970s (LOUD) alarm clock across the other side of my room so I had to fly out of bed to turn the bloody thing off. If I didn’t end up banging out a very uninspired sonata on the violin, I would either take a nap on my ballet barre or cart myself back to bed.

Needless to say, on the morning in question it was a bit of an effort getting out of bed at 4am. Surprisingly, I had a very productive day. I think it was aided by the power nap I grabbed on the flight over (despite the six year old girls giggling at me the whole way) and in part by the copious amounts of caffeine I drowned my body in; however I don’t believe my neighbour on the flight was  aided  in the slightest by the drooling, spasming “suit” sitting next to them. I only hope I didn’t spill coffee into their lap with a rogue arm…

“Tee hee, watch this…”
Image from clipartof.com

As we were coasting at 10,000 metres (I don’t know if that’s correct, but it sounds good, right?) I glanced out my window to a marvellous view of blue sky atop a field of fairy-floss meringues. I’ve always been fascinated by clouds and, despite the science telling me I would fall through, I really want to try jumping on them. I’m convinced it would turn out exactly like a jumping castle only with a delicious snack as an added extra. I blame cartoons for this. Perhaps I should try skydiving?

For me, cloud jumping is like one of those things you are told never to do, which of course just makes the curiosity unbearable. Like Googling “google” or sneezing with your eyes open. You so desperately want to try it, flying in the face of danger that you might just blow up the internet and lose your eyeballs at one fell swoop.

So alas, I am resigned to refrain from my cloud-curiosity and instead will have to be content with looking and not touching. But if the person who pokes and prods every item in the shop is anything to go by (a.k.a. me), I fear looking is futile!