about takeoffs and landings

The first hour slips under our wings. The next hour peels paint as it angles us higher and farther from anywhere, locking us out of your homes from 35k feet. We wave through windows, untethered, until, washed up on the rock-strewn shore of our futures, we meet again.

about a connecting flight

A beautiful woman sat in the aisle seat, row 6, and I took the window. More passengers filed in, and then a man took the middle seat. He wanted to sit by her. The plane was full of conversation minutes after takeoff. The man and woman talked. They talked the whole flight. I caught bits and pieces of what he said, but nothing she said. He told some stories. One was about a time he cashed a check at a bank drive-through but at home discovered the teller gave him too much money, which he reported. What a guy: honest and so secure that he doesn't even count money when it is given to him.

 

His smothered, gentle laughs, his quiet applause at her jokes, and the sun streaming through the window onto the pages of my book—it all felt so good. 

about the flight in

The Chinese girl was saving the middle seat for her man. She boarded long before him because she checked in on time. He arrived. Between sandy hair and a trim build is the prematurely aged face of hard living; he wears a flannel shirt as though he always does; she wears a flannel shirt to signal union. He leans over to her sometimes and speaks. His voice seems to quietly echo out of his mouth. Later, he will get up to use the restroom and end up waiting several minutes longer for his turn than expected. The Chinese girl will watch him, watching him for minutes while her iPhone continues streaming. Across the aisle from the Chinese girl and her fuckup boyfriend, a man takes a seat next to a young mother who cautions him, "Hope you don't mind a fussy baby!" He smiles and says he does not. The baby will sleep the entire flight, but he will take out a pair of fingernail clippers and go to work grooming at 30,000 feet. On my row, a grandmother pushes up the window shade with both hands, and the sun blasts through my eyes.