Come Fly With Me

After Sept. 11, I wasn't sure I'd go. What if a war erupted while I was gone? If a nuclear or biological attack occurred, I could get stranded far away from home, as so many were in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Months ago I accepted an invitation to be a "visiting professional" at the University of Colorado at Boulder, to talk about writing and ethics, because students invigorate me, shake me out of my rut, get my creative juices flowing, make me walk my own talk. I especially wanted to hear what young people had to say about the events of the past few weeks, when Americans have been having amazing conversations with each other via television, Internet, newspapers, magazines, on the phone, and over the backyard fence. We know our lives won't ever be the same, but they can be good -- very good, if we take to heart the terrible lessons of that awful Tuesday.

Getting on the airplane and flying for 10 hours across half an ocean and half a continent would physically reinforce my intellectual belief that we can't live in a bubble, that life carries no guarantees -- and that's why life is so precious.
It's the ordinary things that we cherish -- the birdsong that greets us at dawn, the moonlight shining through the window at midnight, the smell of fresh coffee, the folding of clean underwear, the goodbye kiss at the front door, the feeding of the cat, the pulling of weeds -- that's what elevates us. Of course, there are the weddings, and the anniversaries, the BIG EVENTS -- but the ordinary rituals inspire us to put one foot in front of the other. Those are the memories we hold closest to our hearts.

I knew I was ready to rediscover normal when I glanced down at my jagged fingernails after digging in the garden and absentmindedly thought: "Hmmm, bad nails." I got a file and smoothed them out, then realized this was an everyday act. I had returned to the land of the living, to the usual and the mundane; changed, yes, frightened, no.
I decided it was time to get a grip, set aside fear and get back to business, go on with my life. It's one thing for President George W. Bush to tell us to do that; it's quite another thing for us to actually comply.

I swung into departure mode: pay bills, stock up on cat and dog food, inventory the refrigerator so I don't come back to a hydrator full of penicillin. As I checked off items on my "to do" list I was acutely aware that I was tying up loose ends. What if... 
"Don't," I sternly lectured myself. Too late. In my mind's eye, I saw a jetliner hit the second tower of the World Trade Center.

I kept packing.

Tomorrow I will arrive at the airport three hours before takeoff, submit to whatever searches are necessary, buckle myself into my seat and look out the window. I will be happy to take to the sky again because it's beautiful up there. Good people will sit all around me, ruminating on their own lives, their own loved ones. We'll be a mini-community with a shared sense of purpose as we "slip the surly bonds of earth and touch the face of God."
I don't want "fear of flying" to be on my trip check list. Getting back in the air removes it.

© 2001 The Women Syndicate

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