passenger in transit

After 3 days of bad sleeping and worst eating, working at Iowa City, I’m finally on the plane back home. I’m tired and I really want to sleep, so, as usual, I asked the girl at the counter to change me to a seat with nobody next to me. 2C and my fingers crossed so nobody gets 2D. I’m flying with Daniel and we have seen each other day and night at the plant and the car and at dinner, we only don’t see each other in the few hours we have for sleeping, each one at his/her hotel room. We are absolutely sick of each other. We get along well, we work well together but we are not really friends friends and the conversation topics are very limited and soon finished, therefore we cordially say ‘good night’ when we get on the plane and we each go to our seats… we are so tired. I sit down, fasten my seat belt, take the iPod out, a book, everything I need to take advantage of the fly and make sure I get a 1 hour 43 minutes nap. The flying time to Cincinnati.
While people are still boarding on the plane I cross my fingers so nobody seats on 2D, I want to stretch, get my head against the window and be dead to the world. When it seems that nobody else will board, an old lady comes in and looks to the empty seat next to me. The stewardess asks her for her seat number, it’s 2B… and I breathe happily. She is seating next to me, but with an aisle in between. My nap planes are saved. Daniel is already snoring two rows behind.
I turn on the music, the fatigue and sleepiness have me in a Nina Simone mood, between tired and sad and thoughtful; a dangerous mix. As I know I have to turn off the iPod and all that before taking of, I try not to fall sleep just yet, so I distract myself looking at the people on the plane. The lady at 2B is the closest one, I look to that direction and suddenly I get a scent of talc, cologne and medicines. A scent of a strong grandma, yet a spoiler. My grandma. And I realize then that this lady has certain air to my own grandmother. I see her saving her passport with shaky hands but terribly determined, is a Peruvian Passport. My grandmother is from Argentina and my grandma is because she has never stopped being for me, although she is not here anymore.
My grandma, Abu, loves to travel, she really does. She has ‘hot feet’ and her daughter got them from her and I think I did get them from her daughter. Abu used to say her eyes are like a camera and she didn’t need pictures, the only thing she had to do was to close them, choose which place she wanted to go again and transport herself. I saw her doing that more than once, on the weekends I spent with her at 5511 Bolivia St while we lived in Buenos Aires. So, I close my eyes and turn on my own movie on the plane, I'm going to one of those weekends. A grandmother/granddaughter ritual that we enjoyed our own way…
We took the train first and then the bus, we stopped, as always, one stop before her house to get ice cream; a medium strawberry for her and a huge dark chocolate/caramel for me. Dripping ice cream and happiness, because we had two days of ‘adventure’ ahead of us, we started walking. We arrived to the house, took the TV out to the patio and played cards until Simon & Simon was on, around 2am. Of course I wouldn’t be able to do something like that at home, but at 5511 Bolivia St, we were both ‘your majesty’ and I was able to do it as long as I let my grandmother have fun practicing on me the cheating she would do on her friends later at the card game.
Continuing the ritual, the next morning I was sent to buy raviolis, watermelon, apple for my turtle, chocolate milk and those chocolate sugared cookies that were my favorites. After a decadent breakfast I went upstairs to read some of the books my mom left in her old room. On that musty smelling room, lying on the bed or the floor or out on the stairs, depending on the weather, I read The Three Musketeers for the first time… and like 3 times more, I read all the volumes of The Youth Treasure, an impressive book about Hiroshima and I discovered Hemingway when I was 12 years old and I didn’t like it that much. All this with the turtle as company, while my grandma was visiting her next door neighbour.
For lunch Abu made the raviolis, cream for me and sauce for her. We ate, of course, while playing cards. As dessert, two huge slices of watermelon were eaten standing up next to the kitchen sink, spitting the seeds, while Abu told me juicy gossips and dirty jokes and I laughed my head of. Then nap time, grandma went to sleep and I went back upstairs to continue reading until Soledad called me. Soledad had my age, lived next door, was able to make ham and cheese pie, one of my favorite meals and I admired her for that. She was fun to hang out with. When the nap was over Abu called me, sounding upset to scare Soledad, but the real motive of her needing me back home right NOW was to give me money so I could get candy for her and sugus and chocolate for me. And the weekend was supposed to went on, full of little moments of happiness; little, simple, happy moments, as all the moments we spent alone together. But the 1 hour 43 minutes is over and I have to wake up and stop being with my Abu… again.
My Abu is practical, divine, full of mistakes and wise words, vices and wonders. I’m sure she has told my sisters and myself many interesting and deep things, things that deserve to be embroidered and framed, but the best things I have learned with her are that eagles don’t catch flies, that only the stupid get bored and that sometimes is very very good to do something really bad. I leave the plane with a napkin still on one hand and Daniel telling me that I probably didn’t sleep well because my eyes are red, like I’ve been crying… I miss you so much Abu.