Up In The Clouds, Those Books

I have habit, a small pleasure really, to always buy a paperback from the airport bookstore each time I travel. And on its first page, without fail, I'd scribble the date and city of departure before I start reading.

It may seem like a mindless entry, and in fact it really is. But I am so used to the routine that I find myself obsessing about it the moment I step into an airport, so much so that I get frantic when I can't find a decent title to procure. Then, I'll spend another ten minutes pacing around the bookstore aisles and wringing my clammy fingers in anxiety before settling for one with a dubious title such as "The Deafening Whisper" or "Antartica - More Than Ice", after watching about a dozen transit shoppers come and go with a copy of it each. The logic behind this is, better to read a lousy book than to be airborne without any. Another one of my quirky little philosophies.

Thus, you can imagine how many books, good or otherwise, I have stashed away all these years from my travels. They have become my proud collection and many of which are so enjoyable that I read them over and over again. And each time I do, I would take a quick glance of my entry on the first page and reminisce fondly of that particular trip. Yes, most people use photographs, postcards or journals to remember their vacations by. Not me, I use books. Somehow my brain seem to recall better by aligning memories with trashy book content.

So it was with my life's greatest regret that I left a paperback, one that should be part of my collection, in an aircraft once. You may think it's a forgivable offence to lose a book by slotting it to oblivion in the heinously deep front pocket of your seat, but hell no, I did nothing of the sort. I fell asleep after reading three lines of the prologue and simply let it slide down the empty space between my arm rest and the wall of the aircraft. Most of all, it was just a one-hour domestic flight from Toyama to Haneda Airport. Not the best excuse for nodding off in a most unglamorous manner, much less to lose a brand new novel that was a potential good read. Utterly disgraceful.

Now, I've learnt to be more careful with my books by spending those dreadfully long pauses between touchdown and the seat belt sign going off, committing myself to checking and re-checking my articles. "Passport, hand-carry, book... passport, hand-carry, book..." That's how I remember. These days, I never lose my books anymore, although I had subsequently left behind a scarf, a pair of sunglasses and a couple of muffins, all in the same deep, dark aircraft front pocket.

Well, try as we might, we can never be perfect, can we?

Ahhh... I forgot to mention my favourite habit of using the little stubs left of boarding passes as bookmarks when I read. I sincerely think that's what the airline people invented them for. Clever.