Flying

I was cleaning off an old memory card tonight and I stumbled upon a couple of photos I took en route to Hawaii. Specifically, this one, which I really like:

There is something about photographs taken in the air that is necessarily surreal. I look at the photograph and it’s hard for me to remember my time on the plane that led to such a picture. If I squint and try to remember real hard, I can recall snapping that pic with my broke-ass pocket point-and-shoot while my window-seat-having companion was in the can. But beyond that, it’s all been retired to the recesses of my brain, never to be recovered again, most likely.

What’s the point of this post? No clue. Except, maybe, to muse that flying has still not gotten any easier for me these several years I’ve been flying alone. The first time I flew ever was March of 2001. The second time was October of 2001. The difference between the two times was absolutely staggering. I’ll never forget the armed soldiers stationed throughout the Nashville and airport that October. And even though it’s gotten much more lax since then (despite the ridiculous 3-ounce liquid carry-on and take-off-your-shoes rules), it’s still a nerve-wracked ordeal for me. Every time my plane takes off, I get teary-eyed and assume that we’re going to plow into another plane and spend our final moments in a miserable inferno.

So far, I’ve gotten lucky and had nothing but wonderful experiences on airplanes. Still, every time we get up to 30,000 feet and pretend to be comfortable, ordering drinks and snack boxes, I imagine what it might be like were one of our engines to peter out or one of our fellow passengers to decide he/she needed to commandeer the plane for personal reasons, and each time I’m fairly sure I’d not be able to climb over my neighbor and be a hero.

If anything, I’d rely on my sleeping pills to help me doze through the entire crisis.