I do, however, let my fears influence what I take with me–in this case, a white face mask that my neighbor gave me–just in case. I didn’t want to be the only person on the flight wearing a mask, so I figured I’d just take it out if someone began coughing excessively or if they looked like they were burning up with a raging fever. I thought I was being quite smart in my choice to take the red-eye from Los Angeles to Cincinnati, Ohio. How many people could possibly be heading for Cincinnati in the middle of the night? And since the group that hired me was flying me first class, I expected to have a lot of empty room around me. I was completely wrong.
According to news reports, air travel is down and several airlines are in trouble. I don’t doubt that this is true, but apparently the people who are choosing not to go to the Orient are all going to Cincinnati. In the middle of the night. The plane was full, first class was full, and the man beside me snored loudly. Leaving me to wonder if SARS can be transmitted by snoring. I didn’t see anyone wearing a mask, so I didn’t take mine out, but I had plenty of time to think, since I couldn’t sleep with all that noise coming from the window seat.
I had to search way back in my memory to dredge up a recollection of flying without fear. It was the first plane flight I ever took–I must have been about eight or nine; my grandfather flew with me from Phoenix to Los Angeles. I can’t remember the circumstances, or why my parents weren’t with us, but I remember the flight. It was easy and fun, and the skies really did seem friendly. The stewardesses wore navy blue uniforms and cute little hats, and they passed around trays with miniature-sized candy bars and single sticks of gum. I’m sure I had heard of plane crashes, but nothing I’d heard intruded on the experience of looking through the window, down to the land rolled out beneath us–how the hills looked like soft brown mounds of dirt from that height, how the desert changed to darker soil with clusters of trees as we left Arizona and headed toward California. I remember thinking how many people were down there, going through their days, and there I was in the sky looking down on them.
It seemed amazing to me, the way those silver wings could carry us so far in such a short amount of time, the way there was a tiny little world up there in the sky for a while, speeding over the world down below.
I doubt even children have that experience now. Too much has happened. Fear is too much with us, and even if we try to argue with it and say things like, “Well, when it’s your time, it’s your time,” we think about it. All the things that can happen, all the images that we can never erase. Fear and flying are linked now, to one degree or another, in almost everyone’s mind. I would like to recapture, for just a moment, the thrill of that young girl who looked out of an airplane window and loved being in the sky, but I know I never will.
On my return flight (the next day–a quick turnaround, no luggage, no overnight stay) I again looked around to see if anyone had masks on. No one did. Once again, the plane was completely full, and this time I was seated beside a man who was tossing back drinks. My fear of SARS retreated and I began to worry that he would get so drunk he’d throw up on me. One fear was instantly replaced by another. Leaving me to wonder if fear has become a habit now–if air travel seems so precarious, so fraught with risks, that we pack up fear like a change of clothes. We just assume we’ll need it for something.
