Something About Airplanes...

I’ve said before that, if I were brave enough to be a stranger person, I would spend more time in airports. I would be content to just wander them, people-watching. The smell of cheap coffee, the bustle, and there's something about those automated loudspeaker announcements I find so industrial yet somehow comforting. I love to fly in the airplanes, too; I love the whole process of travel, as exhausting as it is. When I travel I wear my “alone-smile”, an expression so rare that no one has ever seen it but whatever passing stranger happens to glimpse me. Not even I have seen that smile; I’ve never been able to catch it in the mirror.


My dad had adamantly insisted that I choose an aisle seat, and usually I would follow his advice but this time I timidly rely on my own judgment: a window seat. Why doesn’t everyone stare rapt out their windows for the entire flight? I love the view below, no matter if it’s clouds or the camouflage-like patches of land viewed from above. Take-off is the best part, rushing rushing fasterfasterfaster and whoosh as resistance changes from cement to air and the upward tilt of the plane that pushes you to the back of your seat. Then, in a window seat, you can watch things get smaller and smaller; buildings, city blocks, interwoven highways. It goes from an engulfing, inhabited reality to a child’s model in the space of minutes, finally ending with nothing but flat shapes that make it seem as if the plane flies over some intricately painted floor only yards below. It’s funny, that trick on the vision. Even though I know the world down there is three-dimensional—with depth and volume and contents—from this high up all I see is a flat patchwork floor cluttered with clouds that seem to rest on it like celestial dust-bunnies. I try but I just can’t see the jagged lines of my earth from such great heights. I love it, the change in perception. I imagine myself walking on that flat floor, changing dimensions and becoming flat myself; a paper-girl whose heart is forced to beat sideways like A Wrinkle in Time. Why aren’t people fighting for window seats? I hope I never stop smiling like a child as I stare outside.

My lovely window seat is by an emergency exit. A stewardess approaches; apparently a little extra leg-room comes with a solemn responsibility. She starts explaining, then requiring a response; a promise. To sit here I must agree to assist passengers as they exit the plane in case of emergency. Am I willing and able to assist? I want to say, “I’m not sure; ask me when we’re plummeting from 50,000 feet,” but I just say “yes” along with the people near me and stare at the doors, trying to figure out how to open them. I wish I’d asked to be reseated; this is too much responsibility. It’s too late now, though; she’s a long way down the aisle.


In case of emergency. What would I do in the case of emergency? I can see it happening, the crash. I can see myself actually being rather calm. I’m alone, here on this plane bound from Kansas City to Dallas; no one I love is nearby. So I don’t think I’d scream. What would be the use of screaming? Of that sharp dread in my stomach? What would be the use in doing anything but letting the plane fall? In the rumbling tumbling turbulence I think the only thing I would do is stare at the gas masks falling from the ceiling, the beeping noises signaling emergency fading into the back of my dissociated mind.
It isn’t that I wouldn’t care; it would mean I am in the company of the dying. It isn’t only my life. And I do have many things I want to do before I die. But absent from the body is present with my Lord, and death-by-plane-crash would be quick so I suppose I’d be alright with it. Except for everyone else’s panic; their crying and screaming. I think my attitude would be, “Can’t you just be quiet and let me process this?” I would want quiet so that I could think. To give myself a chance to really know that I am in an airplane about to crash, and figure out how exactly that makes me feel. To mentally prepare myself for the impact. To exchange a few quick words with God. To appreciate the novelty of the event.


Soon, I’m distracted from these speculations by my fellow passengers. Planes are wonderful for people watching. Better than airports or malls even, because you have extended periods of time to make observations. There’s a bald man in front of me. I want to draw on his head. Somehow it vaguely annoys me, his shiny scalp beneath the artificial lighting. Skin shouldn’t be so shiny; it isn’t natural.

Next to me is a fat lady reading a drama novel. Her hair is short and curly, but the ringlets are too perfectly uniform—-she must have had a perm. Her pale skin is freckled, and the freckles match the brown scrubs she’s wearing. Wedding rings sit nestled in flesh around her chubby finger. Her double chin jiggles in the turbulence. The title of her book, “Poor Little Bitch Girl”, features the petite nose and florescent pink lips of a blond woman licking caviar from the tip of her long, perfectly manicured fingernail. The cover is all bright pink and green. One of those soap opera-esque drama novels, those books that are like cotton candy: insubstantially sweet and easy to finish, but ultimately unfulfilling.

There is also an elderly Indian gentleman nearby, staring at me. I smile at him when I meet his gaze. I see that it isn’t a “creepy” sort of stare. It is soft and wistful, not fully present; as if I remind him of a granddaughter he hasn’t seen in a long time and he’s remembering her—missing her. Then the stewardess mistakes my coffee order for his, and we exchange drinks. I smile warmly at him—far more friendliness than a complete stranger usually gets from me—as we make a joke or two about cream, sugar or black.


Yes, I do love to people-watch on airplanes. There are other things too, though; things besides the people and the window seats. I love the knowledge of such swift motion, while it feels as though we are still. We are going somewhere; we have a purpose. A destination, albeit temporary. Flying into a different time zone—one that is an hour later—is even better. It’s as if we’ve flown through some portal in the atmosphere and suddenly, time has passed.


I like when time passes quickly, in general. I like forgetting time and then realizing much more of it is gone than I’d thought. There are times I wish that it would slow down or even stop, but those instances are few and far between. Mostly I want time to pass so that I can get on with it; get going so I can feel as though I’m moving on.

I like sleeping late because it makes the days go by faster. It’s not that I don’t want to live in the days—I do. There is so much to do and love and see and learn and feel; to say, to pray, and even to hate sometimes. It’s not that I don’t want to experience the richness each day has potential for. I just like the feeling of motion; of the passage of time toward something. I’ve not been fond of sitting still lately, nor am I fond of Time sitting still around me, growing fat and bloated with seconds and minutes and hours that keep coming but then stay just to hang stale in the air and it’s only Wednesday.

But, oh, it’s already Wednesday. I suppose I have mixed feelings about the passage of time. It passes though, no matter how I feel about it. None of us can help it that every second of our existence is a step toward the end of our time—our time passing through us. We hurry up and live, and do things, all the while knowing. Maybe that’s why weddings and funerals share a number of similarities. Both are so sacred, so final; and you aren’t supposed to wear white to either event.


No matter what time brings, at least it is moving. It is moving through me, and in it I live and breathe and move move move forward. Because as much as I hate it when time stands still around me, I also hate being still myself.

I was in this rich lady’s house once, and my mother told me that the woman who lived there only had a job because she was bored; that they already had all the money they needed and more. I wouldn’t want to live like that; I wouldn’t want to have reached the destination. I want to always be working towards something; always moving forward. For this reason…ultimately I’m not sure I want a place to call home.


I’m sure this is a prominent way of explaining my fondness for airports and airplanes. They are for going places; they are for forward motion and procedure. They are for flight at breakneck speeds. They are for leaving one place, and arriving at another. They are for journeys of purpose; they are the means to an end.

As of now, I hope to never reach that end. I hope to fly always, only alighting long enough get all I can out of one place. Then I would leave again, flying always to somewhere that is not where I will stay. I’m afraid that if I do reach somewhere to stay—if I do reach that end and cease to make use of the means that so intrigue me—I will just look around and think, “This is it, I guess.” Maybe after a silent spell I would stand there and say, “Now what?”

And hopefully, my answer to myself would be, “To the airport”.


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