Flight

I'm not a huge fan of flying. I often look at planes cruising overhead and think, dang, it's a good thing the world wasn't waiting for me to invent that. I feel like that about a lot of things. Like radios, the internet, straws. Anyway, the other day I was listening to Annie Lamott on This American Life and heard her describe herself as a skeptical flyer. That's me. Skeptical. I used to have quite a bit more anxiety, but that was before flying with kids. Lately I have been so busy retrieving lego guys from under the chair in front of me that I have no time to focus on my own issues. But alas, last week Jon and I were flying to New York, just the two of us. Jon didn't drop even one of his lego guys, so I had plenty of time to sit there and think. My first thought was this: I wonder why this flight was delayed for two hours? Was it an engine problem...something wrong with one of those wings? These thoughts spiraled me into a pretty bad place where I had no business being. Just then the nice and friendly pilot came on the loudspeaker (actually, on a plane I think it should be called a quietspeaker. I can NEVER hear what they are telling us) to tell us that the delay was indeed caused by extremely windy conditions in New York. Then he went on to say the landing could be bumpy. Then I think, New York!! Birds!! In turbines!! Landing in rivers! I glance down at my bag in my lap. Will they make me leave it here? I could easily hold it while balancing on the wing....
Somehow I managed to doze for a while after this pronouncement. I awoke as we approached the sprawling metropolis of New York. I was enthralled looking out the window, until I noticed that New York sure was slipping around down there quite a bit. Then I tuned into my body and felt that feeling that sometime comes on planes, when you're heading down and you get pressed down into your chair, then up...and you feel almost weightless for a second. Well, that's a fine feeling. Once. But when combined with a lot of left-right-wing tilting slippage, that's not ok. My anxiety skyrocketed, kicking in just as the motion sickness genes I inherited from Rodg (he once threw up while standing on an aircraft carrier that was completely beached and LOOKING out at the sea) kicked in. Instantly I was covered in a full body sweat. I mean I could honestly feel my toes sweating! Sweating in my shoes. For some reason the only thing that seemed to keep me from losing my lunch was to keep my arms pressed into my sides and my eyes out the window. I'm not sure why looking at the ground slip sliding this way helped me keep my last kernel of control, but it did. I really really wanted to grab the motion sickness bag and get it ready. But I couldn't move my arms! I wanted to tell Jon to get it, but I couldn't move my eyes- nor my lips- they were firmly smacked together. Meanwhile Jon is pleasantly leafing through the Us magazine I bought for my reading pleasure. I can hear him lazily turning the pages, not a care in the world. He tries to say something to me, but I can't respond. He asks again. I use all of my will power to signal to him "Can't talk! Can't move! Sweating! Toes!" But he doesn't get it. He wants an answer. Luckily it is at that moment that we bump onto the runway. And whew- all at once the anxiety, the nausea, flows out and away and I am fine. I turn to Jon and he askes again and I answer with a smile.