Kiss the sky
Rose 4:30 am. Wife and Kid in car service 5:30 am—off to airport, then Michigan. The Kid, not yet two, gets airplanes. On Fire Island, during a vacation which ended weeks ago but seems to have taken place in a separate century, she flew a toy airplane “to Jamaica” for several afternoons running. Not only that, she pointed out the real airplanes and helicopters occasionally flying over the island, and distinguished correctly between the two types of airborne vehicle.
Before this same vacation was halfway over, a mini-tornado touched down in nearby Queens, New York, initiating a week of hard rain. To find out if we needed to evacuate the island, we turned on the beach cottage’s small TV and watched the local news broadcasts, which were only slightly less operatic than The Sopranos. Panting TV journalists interrupted their Katrina-like reportage of the weather event to hype airline terror threats that turned out to be pranks or mistakes. When the TV showed three airplanes in a row as part of its “terror in the skies” coverage, The Kid pointed, clapped, and cried, “Airplane! Airplane!”
And when The Wife was called to her ancestral home last week, The Kid, not yet two, understood that Mommy was taking an airplane to give Grandma an all-better kiss.
Now they are both flying to the ancestral home to see Grandma. As I write this, they must be nearing their landing place. But I am not with them. I go to Seattle.
My grandfather, for whom I was named, died in a plane crash when my mother was eleven. The incident colored every moment of her life. I grew up afraid of flying in consequence—convinced I would die like my namesake. I don’t know when I stopped being afraid. I do a lot of flying, and my main worry, when traveling solo, is to be sure I’ve packed a book I love. (When traveling with The Kid, my anxieties revolve around liquids, snacks, diapers, and naps.)
I do a lot of flying, but not nearly as much as I could. I could speak in a different place every week if I said yes. These days I am careful about yes. Not because I fear, but because I love.
Today it’s Seattle. The book I’ve packed is The History of Love.
Filed under: An Event Apart, Zeldman, cities, family, glamorous
“This post has earned bupkis so far.”
YAAaaa! I get to kick the bupkis in the butt!
Have a safe, enjoyable and uneventful trip.
From what you write of ‘the kid’ it seems you and ‘the wife’ are doing an excellent job of informing her of and exposing her to the world around her. Early learning can rarely, if ever, be underestimated.
Beautiful.
My maternal grandfather was a pilot, and he passed his love of flying on to my mother, who got her license in ‘64 and who was a flight attendant for 25 years for American. All my father ever wanted to do was fly planes, and though he was in a plane crash in ‘69 (he was a crop duster at the time) and got 3rd degree burns on 30% of his body , namely his face, chest, and left arm it didn’t stop him from being a Captain for Southwest for 20 years. My brothers both learned to fly (one threw bags for Southwest) and my past two stepmothers have been a captain and a stewardess respectively. My whole family not only loves to fly, but we can all fly wherever, whenever, for free.
Thank God I’ve finally come out of a multi-year bout of being terrified to fly!
There are good people in and around those airplanes who also have families they want to get back to, people who’ve taken off and landed thousands and thousands (and thousands) of times.
You should also look into A Natural History of Love.
It helps to know that the FAA has the strictest aircraft maintenenace rules in the world. This means that even planes from foreign carriers must meet the FAA maintenance regulations before they are allowed to land at U.S.-based airports.
- I Am Not Afraid To Fly