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Australians have a well-deserved reputation for being some of the greatest people on the planet.  Warm, funny, devil may care, and usually very attractive.  John F. Kennedy Airport has a reputation of being one the worst airports on the planet, with percent on time arrival and departure numbers that rival the unemployment rates in California.  If Heaven or Hell had similar processing percentages, St. Peter and Satan would still be dealing with the queue of soul from 1350.  Occasionally, JFK can surprise you, but mostly it disappoints (just like the Sacramento Kings).

Patrick and I arrived at JFK after a relatively uneventful flight from SFO.  As anyone who knows me knows, I really don’t enjoy turbulence, so I used it as a spiritual opportunity.  I put my iPod on repeat and played “Baba Hanuman” by Benjy and Heather Weirthheimer.  Figuring that Hanuman was the son of the wind, I prayed continuously to him.  When we hit turbulence, I thanked Hanuman for remembering to be mindful of my spiritual practice.  There wasn’t a ton of turbulence, and I did sleep most of the way (fitfully, but slept), so the red eye passed by uneventfully.

When we arrived in New York, we started to head for the AirTrain before we realized that we were walking way from Starbucks.  Patrick and I detoured back and received our usual reinfusion.  I was very cranky on account of the early hour and the fact that, quite honestly, I’m very high maintenance.  I’m also highly independent, and traveling with someone, even the one I love invokes in me two responses.  The first is annoyance that I have to tend to the needs of someone else.  The second is annoyance that, through years of parental training, is I don’t know if I’m making someone happy, so I have to ask incessantly, “Are you okay?”  Chalk it up to several Nutcrackers gone wrong and one disasterous vacation to the Cayman Islands that you’ll have to read about in my memoires.

Starbucks in hand, we wove our way through the labyrinth of JFK’s Terminal 8 to find the AirTrain to go to Terminal 7.  Patrick’s friend who is travelling with us, Jeff, would be meeting us at the IcelandAir terminal.  So we rode the AirTrain around to all the other terminals and arrived finally at Terminal 7.  When we arrived at approximately 8:30 AM we discovered that the counter did not open until 11:30.  So, we camped out near the one power outlet.  I read After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, blogged, and aimlessly surfed the internet while listening to music.  Patrick as doing much the same.  Jeff arrived via bus from LGA, and we made our way to the IcelandAir counter.  While we would have liked to sit together, fate did not permit it.  Tickets in hands, we proceeded through security, where we did some more waiting (the flight did not leave until 2:20 PM).  We grabbed some food and hung out at the terminal.  Jeff is a chatterbox, and my head was quickly spinning at the rapid fire commentary gushing forth from him.  While I appreciate my craziness as much as the next gay man, I appreciate my silence too.

During the long wait I started to edit some writings by a good friend and listened to music.  I had decided that Jeff and I would swap seats so that he and Patrick would have a chance to connect (and I could have some silence).  So when we finally ended up boarding the aircraft, I took my seat near the back of the plane, seated next to two Aussies.  I opened up After the Ecstacy, the Laundry and thought I would be settling into a relatively low key plane flight.

Oh, no.

Where do I begin?  We backed out of the gate, and proceeded to sit for around two and a half hours on the tarmac.  Naturally, the caused extreme consternation on the plane.  Having routinely flown out of JFK after waiting at least 1 to 2 hours on delays, this didn’t phase me.  Being trapped on the plane does have some additional psychological drain, but I was just calmly reading my book and trying to maintain equanimity about everything.  It was right around this point, however, that might seatmate began a string of irrational actions that would persist for the whole flight.

The passengers directly across from me were feeling very ill-informed by the captain, and kept asking the flight attendant for information.  I explained to them that these delays were not uncommon from JFK, that it happens quite frequently, that the airport has planes leave the gate so that they can still say they departed on-time, etc.  As I turned back to my seat, my seatmate suddenly asked me, “What are you so afraid of?”  Cue adrenaline activation in response to bizarre question from a total stranger.  While I cannot recall the exact discussion we had, there seemed to be quite a few cognitive disconnects between what I felt I was saying and how my messages were being received.  My perceptions were reinforced by the fact that this person kept getting up, walking around, sighing in exasperation, and demanding water.  At one point he reached into his bag and took some medication, one of which I knew to be a fairly powerful pain killer.  This erratic behavior persisted during the two hour delay.

When we finally took off, I almost wanted to kill myself because of the incredibly moving amount of turbulence we experienced on take off.  It generated at least a few “Ohs!” of surprise from some passengers.  At this point in my epic journey to Iceland, I had switched to the middle seat because my addled Aussie was getting up every 15 seconds or so.  So, I’m sitting there quite desperate internally, alarmed and at little bit frightened at the behavior of my seatmate, who I’m basically trying to pacify.  Finally, the irony of the whole situation comes to my attention.  I’m reading a book about the spiritual path, and about facing the illusion of reality, and I’m totally stressed about by this situation.

So I decided to beat the living shit out of my seatmate with the book.  It felt good.

Just kidding.  Instead, I focused on the nature of my fear, and how my fear was creating a reality for me with which I was not entirely happy.  My seatmate was obviously intoxicated (by viritue of the rum and cokes that he drank down like he was going in front of a firing squad); in pain (by virtue of taking painkillers); and an absolute ass (by virtue of my judgment, which I permitted to still do as a spiritual being, but not without then saying, “but I still love your essential buddha nature”).  I retrieved my headphones that I had let him borrow (another pacifying action on my part), turned on my music, and finished my book (which was quite good).

By the end of the flight, I had restored some of my equanimity.  My seatmate even apologized for being a jackass, which I accepted.  He also proved that he still WAS a jackass by getting up while the plane was still heading to the gate after we had touched down.  We disembarked and headed through customs–a mere formality compared to some of my experiences.  We shopped at duty free, and popped out into the glimmering twilight of an Iceland summer.  The sun hovered on the horizon, providing some illumination, not quite set, not quite rising.  It was 3:00 AM.

When we arrived at our apartment, we found ourselves right in the heart of the Icelandic Friday night.  A racuous and high-energy crowd shouted, sang, and smashed beer bottles on the pavement.  It was as if it were Rush Night, Gay Pride, and 1999 all at the same time.  We were ushered into our apartment by one of the proprietors, and were all pleasantly surprised by the surrounding.  I showered, and Patrick and Jeff went out for mixers.  We ended up having a drink and crawling into bed at 4:30 in the morning.  I was marveling that the sun was once again rising, and the sound of revelers was still strong outside.  I feel into a deep and immediate sleep, glad to be on vacation, and glad to be off that plane.