Flight Into the Unknown

The efficient EVA Airline flight attendant just cleared my meal trays and it seems a good time to begin the first of my reports to be written on the way to, and ultimately from, a part of the world that will take so much of my attention for the next two years. I have a strong suspicion (read expectation) that this doc series will not only be successful but will also be extended off into the future. The whole topic of Climate Change is of growing concern not only to poor rice farmers of Southeast Asia but the world at large. The date displayed on my laptop computer is November 10. Is it, really? Further study reveals that it’s midnight either where I came from or where I’m going. It’s a blur. I slept perhaps four hours total. Each time I raised the window shade it’s black outside. I am at a loss. What day is it? What is the prevailing time zone? But does it matter right now? I really don’t care. I’ll just be right here, right now. Benjamas (my coproducer) and her son Ohm are seated somewhere behind me. We’ve not spoken since our midnight lift-off and just as well, I suggest. Prior to boarding she wanted to go over the logistics for the next 4 days. I could not wrap my mind around all that at that time. Not without my notes in front of me and a large chalkboard with an agenda carefully laid out in large block letters mounted on the wall. I will need sleep before taking on all that. I am such a “low capacity system” when I’m used up by the day’s activities. Feeling that I must add to your body of knowledge concerning this adventure, I am attaching hereto a map of SEA with our ambitious route delineated. Last thought of the day: When I boarded the monster Boeing 777 aircraft just before midnight in San Francisco, I found myself comfortably stationed in a seat between a window and a very pretty and very shy young Asian girl. Such an elegant girl she was and no more that twenty years of age. What caught my attention was how slowly and gracefully she moved. Never otherwise. Every move prolonged in time with the grace of a ballerina. I would enjoy talking to her but she went out of her way to avoid my eyes and any conversation. It wasn’t until we were exiting the plane in Taiwan that I found her gazing at me. She smiled with her eyes. She nodded her head, turned and was gone.