I don't travel for work that often, other than driving to the courthouse (which doesn't really count), both because my work doesn't require it and because I hate it. So I try to avoid it as much as possible.
I hate it because being away fom my family...well, to be inartful in my expression...sucks.
And I hate it because I'm a terrible flyer. I'm a bit phobic, in fact.
Here's how a trip begins for me: I wait at the terminal trying to distract myself from the scenes of downed and hijacked airliners that play round my subconscious from decades of news-watching. If it's not too early in the morning (like today -- 7:40 a.m. flight -- too early), I'll probably get a drink to take the edge off.
Eventually, we'll board and I will inevitably have the middle seat because (a) I don't fly that much and (b) government contract travel is not known for its posh accommodations. Today, my middle seat isn't so bad because the people on either side are quite good at staying in their allotted square footage. Small mercies.
Once seated and buckled in, I'll develop a lump in my throat and my eyes will get hot like I'm about to cry. Except, I won't cry, by dint of will, because that would be uncomfortable for everybody. But I do want to cry. I'll stow my purse beneath the seat in front of me, glance through the Sky Mall magazine, look at the emergency card to find my emergency exit, and finally fold my hands and try to breath normally.
As we taxi to the runway, I squeeze my hands tightly and clench my teeth. As the plane leaves the ground, I gasp slightly and tears well up to rim my eyes, but don't escape. Once we're actually flying, I calm down, the horrible images mostly receding. I'm able to function relatively normally, reading a book or magazine, or writing a blog post or whatever.
I rarely sleep on airplanes. I can never relax that much, and this despite getting up at 4:30 Central time this morning and waking up every hour on the hour last night because of nerves.
If I'm lucky, the person in front of me will not lean his seat back. I am not lucky this morning. And I find myself wishing I'd brought earplugs with me. I'd forgotten how loud airplanes are, and the fellow to my right has been snoring since before we left the gate. He smells as if he does not have the same personal prohibition against the early a.m. tipple that I have. Good for him, I suppose, but not good for me, my ears or my nose.
As soon as the drinks cart passes, I'm going to annoy my seatmate on the aisle and make my way to the flying loo. This always happens too. About 30 minutes into a flight, I feel like I need to pee like I've never needed to pee before. And this is so, even though I went 15 minutes before boarding.
I do try not to converse with people. Best for everybody. I'm just generally bad at small talk, for one, and, for two, who knows whether a Malaysian Airlines or World Trade Center or Lockerbie comment might accidentally escape my lips. Best to stay mum.
So, presently, I've set my watch to Eastern time, and it looks like I've got about an hour and 45 minutes until we land. Landings are a little less horrible for me, but I still tense up, tear up, grasp my hands, and hold my breath on the approach until we're on the ground.
But for now, I'm going to fire up the Kindle app on this iPad to read a book. Will it be Oscar and Lucinda or Lucky Jim? Perhaps I'll let you know in my next post.
