Strange Conversations at Thirty Thousand Feet
Boarding the plane, I thought a cruel twist of fate would have this ex-girlfriend sitting next to me for the six hours to Honolulu. By the grace of Odin, I was spared. The woman next to me was a red-haired college student that seemed content to adhere to her books.
I always get an aisle seat. As a child, the window seat was the promised land. I could stare at the endless horizon in wonderment and awe. Looking up, I imagined what outer space would be like. Down below, everything was distant and I felt small on a vast planet.
But, with experience, the aisle seat was always the better choice. I hate disturbing people from a nap because my tiny bladder was overflowing for the third time in ninety minutes. The anxiety would be palpable, and left me guilt-stricken. I have lost that sense of awe and thinking about the whole-wide world from an airplane window.
I drift into a tired sleep.
I am awakened by the roar of the engines. I will be alert and conscious for the entirety of the flight. I hate the world.
The plane levels off at its cruising altitude and our flight today will be five hours and forty-five minutes. The weather in Honolulu is a cool seventy-eight degrees and sunny with slight cloud cover. You are free to use electronic devices, but the seat belt light will remain on for the duration of the flight.
I turn on my iPhone and look through my music. I am disheartened. None of the songs are appealing. I remind myself to update my library when I get back to Seattle. A promise that is never kept.
I thumb through the in-flight magazine knowing that it should occupy me for a good half-hour, right? The articles last me barely five minutes. Great, now I have five hours and forty minutes left in the flight.
The red-haired woman sitting next to me is buried in whatever handouts she has attached to her green three-ring binder. The handouts look the same as when I was in school. The nostalgia made me smile. The red-haired woman notices and turns. I realize that I have been staring. I expect a glare or some kind of discouraging sign. But she smiles slightly.
“First time going to Hawaii?”, I say. I am terrible at this. It is weird. I have no idea how to make small talk or even just introduce myself outside of any kind of work situation. I always have this lingering fear that whatever I am saying is trite and boring. And, this fear isn’t just borne from paranoia. I certainly notice when people conveniently change the subject, interrupt me, or the dreaded lets-just-ignore-the-nerd cold shoulder.
Amazingly, she answers, “No, I’ve been there before. Heading over to do some research.”
“Research?”
“Yeah, I study vulcanology. You know, volcanos.”
“Lots of volcanoes in Hawaii.”
“Yeah.”
Wow this is going no where.
I try to rescue the conversation.
“Cool, yeah, I am heading to the Philippines.”
“Have you ever been to Taal?”
“Oh yeah, its gorgeous in person.”
You know what? I don’t know if I’ve ever really been there in person. The Philippines has always been this ethereal place to me. When I was a kid, I remember things that no one else seems to recall. There are like vignettes in some long, forgotten, half-remembered dream.
There was this time that I remember getting lost in the jungle with my older brother. We (along with our parents) were visiting a family friend that was a dentist. Mike and I went out in the backyard to go exploring. We walked up a couple of hills which in my child’s mind became vast unconquerable valleys. There was mud, rain, and everything was an emerald green. We got lost, and I started half-crying. At one point, we were at some pond with a small waterfall. It was the local swimming area populated with the denizens of the next town over. The scene exuded an entrancing feeling of wonder. I don’t remember how we got home.
The thing is that the story that I just told you is not remembered by anybody. My brother has no recollection and neither do my parents. I wonder if it ever really did happen.
Meanwhile, the conversation with the fire-bright redhead was going well. We crossed over from subtle pleasantries to talking about ourselves. She was a graduate student at Washington studying vulcanology. In her youth, a vacation to Washington state from the very not-volcano-enabled Iowa introduced her to mountains, in particular Mount Rainer.
I remark that going to Hawaii must be like vacationing in Disneyland for someone in her field. Lame joke, but it made her laugh. And good times were had all around.
I felt fortunate. Most of my co-passengers are either smelly, boring, weird, or awkwardly sleeping on my shoulder in the middle of the flight. The redhead was funny, affable, interesting, and married. I noticed the ring on her finger about midway through the flight. Oh well, I thought at least I don’t have to be too charming then.
The flight passed by quickly. We said our goodbyes and headed out of the plane, once again strangers. I know it has been observed before, but airplanes are aberrant concoctions. One shares an almost intimate space with a complete stranger in a flying aluminium tube for several hours. You are hugging the very edge of life and death at altitudes that would kill everyone in minutes. Over the course of the trip, you get acquainted with your neighbors and even share meals with them. But as soon as those wheels touch the ground, any semblance of familiarity is dissipated. They were never really friends or even acquaintances, and left as faceless shadows in a crowd.
As soon as I step off the plane, I feel the warm embrace of Hawaii, and I feel home. Remorse fills me, and I realize for the first time that I wish my stay would be longer.
