I never imagined that an interstate trip could be so exciting. But when your world has become smaller since the pandemic hit two-and-a-bit years ago, and then slowly1 , the most ordinary experience gives new 2 to life. And so it was with me when I was 3 given the chance to take my first flight in more than two years.
I'd forgotten how it felt to be among the people coming and going. I got to the airport two hours before boarding. Time for the bar and, of course,4 .
That group of young Arab women laughing and posing for photographs by the expansive windows, aircraft in the5 , lighting up the place with their happiness.
The man in the corner drinking alone. Just another one of the 70,000 or so stories that would pass through the airport6 .
I couldn't be calmer as a flyer. But when the plane took off I was7 , in that moment of weightlessness as the wheels 8 Earth, leaning towards the window to watch everything below becoming smaller and smaller.
Is it possible that the denial of so much during the pandemic lockdown had added new 9 to what was the ordinary? I think so. The plane ride, the hotel stay, and the social occasion all now gave me a sense of10 that might have previously only aroused in me nothing more than a certain nonchalance(若无其事) or even11 .
Last June, just ahead of the long Sydney lockdown, a friend12 a birthday party. That experience for me would continue happily through some of the13 months of the lockdown that would follow.14 the repeated fear that the pandemic holds over us, the memory of that celebration still keeps its bright, warm light in my mind. That's what happens when everything old is new again, when 15 is rediscovered as a virtue.
