Airplane

My friend Kristen has been keeping me supplied with new music lately.  My iShuffle is all ready to go.  It will be attached to my ears the instant I stop listening intently to the flight attendant instruct me on how to save my life.  I plan on raising my hand and asking if we can do a quick de-planing run-through on the inflatable slide.    I think they'll be open to the suggestion, don't you?  Gosh, they should at least let me practice with those oxygen hangy down things.  If they'd let me, I'd just wear it the whole flight.  You know.  Better safe than sorry.  I'm going to ask if I can just sit on the metal part of my seat and hug the seat cushion the whole trip.  I mean, you never know how long it would take you to get the flotation device out from underneath you and I want to be prepared at a moment's notice....Don't you wish you were going to be sitting next to me for the trip????  Doesn't it sound fun?!

Yeah.  

Not a huge fan of the flying.  I've got a dad who is a pilot and a brother who can take apart and put back together any airplane.  Aviation should be in my DNA.  For pete's sake, I probably spent a collective 6 years of my childhood at an airport and/or airshow.  But no.  It's not there.  I appreciate the feat of engineering that allows air travel, but I prefer to appreciate it with feet firmly on the ground.  Ah.  Ground.  I really love ground.  Ground is so under-rated.  

Have you heard the song Airplane by Indigo Girls?  "Up on the airplane, nearer my God to thee.  I start making a deal, inspired by gravity".  Yeah. I find gravity really inspiring.  

See that look in my eye?  That's fear.  Fear because "the engines sounded funny".    Turns out, they were just running.  You know, like how engines run?  And this was only a 3.5 hour flight.

The first song on my iShuffle will be Let Go by Matt Hammitt.  It repeats "let go...You're in control so help me to let go...".  Yep.  That'll be a good take-off song.  I'm just changing the lyrics a little: "Let go of the arm rest...You're in control so let go of Jeff's hand and allow circulation to resume through his fingers".  It's catchy, no?  Hope Now by Addison Road is another favorite at the top of the list.  "Everything rides on hope now,

everything rides on faith somehow".  I love that.  Everything always has ridden on faith, but now it's become so apparent.  

Here's me on a flight to Kansas with the twins who were then 6 months old.  Travelling with six month old twins?!  After that, one would think I could conquer any fear.  One would think.

Look how much luggage we took to Kansas.  That's pretty scary.  Aw.  Look at the twins in their car seats. in the background.  Just little babies.  The passage of time without my consent--now THAT'S scary!  And yet, no matter how much I try to gain perspective, a gagillion hour flight across the ocean is still monumentally scary to me.  

This is how my retired-pilot dad and retired-pilot's-wife mom and aviation mechanic brother look at me when they can no longer hold in their amusement while explaining that that noise I just heard doesn't mean "we're goners".  It was just the landing gear coming up.  Look at them!  They're still in disbelief that I'm not just joking.

I am joking.  A little.  Not really.  But see above?  I can smile on a plane.  Really I can.  And I'll have a really good reason to smile, the whole way.