It's a Monday and I am heading off to Australia. With that jump over the ocean, it's when my trip should really start. I am actually really fortunate as I get some really good entertainment on my flights. It's not really entertainment in the sense of watching movies and listening to my iPod. No, it's about life entertainment: people sharing their lifes and experiences with me. A thing that I was lucky to have on the flights from Singapore to Darwin with Eva, and from Darwin to Cairns with John. Let me share you a bit of their stories with you, as they seem precious to me, and probalby meant to be told and heard.
So who is Eva? When I sat down next to her, and the first minutes getting comfortable in my seat, she seemed to me as not being too talkative. I don't remember what put us off talking with each other, but I simply said something pretty meaningless to her. She would be about 60 years old, with colourful clothes, tasty and kind of elegant, blond coloured hair, and wearing jewelry (actually a very nice ring that her second husband made for her) and nice make-up. She was on her way back home from Thailand, where she was for 10 days finding herself a job as an English teacher and a home for her husband and herself. Everyone told her that she wouldn't be able to do that, but she did: she found a beautiful home and a good job in a local school where she starts teaching 16th of December. She seemed brave to me, she and her husband decided to spend there 6 years of her life, her husband now going to be a pensionist. I really respect her, not knowing her husband, but I felt her strong character during our conversation (also as I asked myself why she was going by herself and not being accompanied by her husband). We got more personal as we came to speak about her grandchildren (the ones of her husband not actually hers) and the difficulties with the daughter in law and the elder son, that behaves much younger than his age. One thing that I remember - without going into much details of her personal live - is that she said about the relationship and distance between parents and children: Don't follow your children! she said, and is probably very right about it. It was good to feel that she and her husband were following their life, realizing their ideas and probably dreams, leaving also the freedom to their children to do the same. The other thing that I want to remember from her is that: There is no successful education, if the student is stressed. Wow, that really hit a point in me. Actually I told her the story of a good friend of mine that dropped out her boy from 1st grade in school after he got too stressed out with it and actually sick. There she had a wise advice, to look upon the emotional maturity of the child to cope with the situation, but in the end she said that it wouldn't work if the student is stressed out. That was the teacher side of Eva, and there I felt her strength and could imagine her to be a teach that gains her student's respect. How different she got when we got a visit from Sofia, a 6month old baby that her parents - both singers working in London - carried around to us sitting next to the emergency exit. Eva immediately started to chat with Sofia's Dad who was so caring about his daughter that he really touched me. I got a first impression about Australians' chatting everywhere and everytime, but also about Eva's big heart! She suddendly felt really warm-hearted, a new side on her that I didn't feel beforehand. We continued chatting almost the whole night through, and in the end she gave me her card, newly printed with her new address in Thailand, telling me that I would have 6 years to come over and she'd be happy if I'd spend some days with them. I am happy that I met you, Eva!
Finally in Australia, in Darwin we are spending 4 hours waiting in the terminal for our continuing flight to Cairns. I am in Australia, all by myself and it feels really good. I am tired, but Eva has kind of warmed my heart and was such a good company! The place is full of backpackers, a lot of Germans, a lot younger than me and I get a first taste of what will expect me there. Some drinking already bear, which astonishes me. Now much less, as I saw ore of the backpacker habits around Cairns.
When boarding the plane, I get to get the same seat as before, John is taking Eva's seat. And the first thought was: No, why me? An old guy of 60 years, and the whole plane is full of young guys? He almost doesn't fit into the seat, and tells the stewardess to give a call to the airline to tell them to build wider seats. I don't really want to talk to him, but he starts talking with me. In the first few minutes, I am not sure what happened, but he catches my attention and interest immediately. He talks about his farm in the rainforest, where he has a lodge with land where birdwatchers come. He gives me a brochure, and I think that he simply wants to convince some tourist to go to his place. But no, it's rather the opposite, also with him I immediately get into a really interesting talk about his life, my life and the time rushes by so fast. It is six o' clock in the morning, the sun has risen a few minutes ago, and I am awake like after 12 hours of sleep! John turns out to be a treasure island for new thinking and inspiration. Again we start to talk, not sure about what, but as with Eva it turns out to be really worthwhile to remember.
When John was 25 years old, he decided to go for a fundamental change in his life: he was really rich, had the nicest shoes, the nices ties and suits, but when he was looking at his managers, he thought that he didn't want to become like them. So he decided to quit his job, his life, to leave everything, leave without any money and the promise to himself was that he couldn't ask for any food to people. it took him 2 weeks until he was offered the 1st time food. He'd become sort of a Hipppie, that's how he called it. And that vow he had done to himself changed everything: he called it a fundamental change to quality, not quantity. He was travelling for 2 years, and that's the time he also met Patty, his wife. They had met at a concert, and they wouldn't leave each other since then. He said that he would never marry at 26, and not an overweight woman, but he did and is happy ever since. He tells me that I have lots of opportunitis, as I am a nice person, not only "outside", but also inside. I would just need to watch out for the opportunities, and be awake and grasp the right guy when he's there. He met Patty / who is playing poker now and made the 5th place in a tournament with 7.000 participants / and from the 1st evening they were together. They have 4 children and he says that they are all good people which is the most important thing to him.
In the last 4 1|2 years a lot of bad things happened to his family, one of his sons had a car accident and everyone in the other car died, including a young mother with his baby. There was a trial, as in Australia for every car accident there is a trial, and all his sons' friends have shown up to witness. Everyone told that they own their life to John's son. He is pretty big and strong, physlically, John says, but inside he is very soft and sensible, so the accident had really shaken him up. Friends of him would come to their house at night to stay with him, laying around him, putting their hands on him, as he had a lot of nightmares about the accident. John tells me that he lived as a Hippie with others like him: everyone had different philosophies about life, but he thought that it was important that noone was harmed. He learned that rich people wouldn't give any money and that's the ppor that gives you their last penny. I ask him about his strategy to buy the land and build up the lodge, as I explain him about my dream house in Elba. He tells me how they've down it, he and Patty and two other friends. He employed some Hippies to cultivate their garden, and he gave everyone fruit and vegetable and would make them work 4 days a week so they could have a good rest. He employed other people and decided to do the work that others wouldn't want to do and was really successfull with it. He pays everyone good money, so that people were happy to work for him. Everyone in his area was surprised by his way. I tell him about the house and he tells me that the 1st thing to do is to picture it and ask the universal powers to help. But he tells me: " Take a sandwich, and a house. Universe will give you the sandwich, because it's easy. The house is hard, so have to picture it really hard and with all your heart and want it really really badly so that universe will get it for you." John was actually doing reincarnation reasearch, and his theory was that the information about our lives could also be stored in our genes, DNA. Memory is not only in the brain, abut it could also be in the genese. We are not getting too deep into that topic, as we land! Time has flewn by, everyone else was resting on the plane, us not.
We get off the plane, I need to go through all the immigration controls, and John can just pass. As we get off the plane, it feels like as our bond just brakes up. We were there together for this one conversation and that was it. Like a dreamtime. As soon as I got out of the controls, I sit down and write everything down what he told me. It seemed to special and important to me. Thank you John, it was great talking to you!
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