Fear of (Not) Flying

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flying, fear, claustrophobiaI’m not a flyer.

As passengers stand in line to board the plane (after they’ve all scurried like scared squirrels to have tickets checked, hurrying through the tunnel just to stand and wait), I stay behind.

I do not want to enter that metal tube until absolutely necessary.

I’m not afraid of the actual flying part. I understand the physics of how the plane’s engine boosts us up into the sky, the dynamics of keeping us up there, the mechanism of getting us, and the plane, down in one piece.

That’s the easy part. The difficulty, for me, is being squished in that flying tube with 200 other people, with nowhere to go. What if I decide, mid-flight, that I really don’t want to be up there? That in fact, I want to touch earth, now, and walk a mile or so to stretch my legs, or maybe find a burger joint and eat real food, or, even more possibly, go pee someplace more private than a 3 inch by 3 inch box with a suspiciously sticky floor and tiny sink full of used water and strands of hair.

What do I do then?

I hyperventilate. Sweat pours off my forehead and down my back. My skin gets itchy, my lungs get smaller, and my heart starts racing faster than the jet. My mouth opens so I can scream, “let me out!” but my brain takes over and demands, “shut up, Pam.”

Most times, my brain wins over. I grab my paperback and delve into the story, urging my thoughts to go there, into the characters’ setting, into their dilemmas and fears, so I can ignore mine.

But sometimes, my desire for freedom (read: my claustrophobia), wins.

Like the time my man and I meander off one large plane knowing we have a 3-hour wait for the next smaller one to reach our vacation destination, but are told we can rush to the gate and make an earlier flight instead. We’re elated – we can get to the beach, and a drink, even sooner!

But we’re the last ones on the plane, and the flight attendant points us to our seats – in the last row. Gamely, I follow my guy down the aisle, talking to myself all the way “you’ll be fine, just 30 minutes, suck it up.”

Until we sit down, the flight attendant starts her safety spiel, and I pop up like a broken jack-in-the-box (in this case, Pam-in-a-box) and literally run back up the aisle to freedom. I dimly hear my dear seatmate shout, “where are you going?” and the attendant yell, “but the door’s already closed.” I don’t care. I Am Getting Out of There.

As I pass Row 5, a passenger on the aisle grabs my arm softly and whispers, “it’s okay,” treating me like a wild horse, and she the horse whisperer. “I’ll switch,” she continues, urging me to take her seat while she trudges down down down the narrow aisle to sit next to my bemused mate.

Thus, not only do I make it to our vacation island, still married (to an understanding man), but my love for all humanity has tripled.

Nonetheless, every time my guy and I travel together, he holds my hand a bit too firmly as we enter the plane and sit in our (as-close-to-the-front-as-possible) seats. But there’s no need for him to hold tight.

I realize that my biggest fear now is not flying, and thus missing out on visiting enchanting people, like grandchildren, and exotic places, like New Jersey.

Currently my mantra as I enter a plane is:

               “it’s the destination, not the journey!” (Apologies to Siddhartha)

plane, crowds, claustrophobia

Firm Support

/ roughwighting / 5 Comments

I open my dresser drawer to pull out a bra – my favorite one with the lace and no underwire, just right for a day of writing and relaxation. My hand hovers over the array of other ‘stuff’ in the drawer.

Between the three white bras and one black one, I shuffle through the small bag of potpourri, the sales tags from Nordstrom from three years ago, the tiny antique frame that needs to be mended, as it has for the four years it’s sat in that drawer, and to the right, the pile of greeting cards.

Knowing I shouldn’t, I pull the cards out.  I hesitate, then put them back in their spot. I just do not have time to do this now. I look at the clock – 8:12 – and pull them out again. Okay, just a few.

The first one is a picture of bright yellow California poppies in a field. The last Mother’s day card from my son. I open it up and smile. In his scrunched up, manly handwriting I read, “to an amazing person and an even more amazing mother. May you always know I appreciate everything you have done for me, and I love you very much.” I feel tingly goose bumps roll up my spine. This time he didn’t sign it with his first and last name, as in other years. Looking through my pile, I see his Mother’s day card from two years ago, and another from years before that.

But next I pull out a birthday card from my daughter. Last year? Two years ago? It’s not dated, and I wish I had put a year on it. The cover of the orange, new agey-looking card proclaims, “I know a woman of strength and beauty. I have watched her for years.” Inside, in script is added, “She is my mother. Happy Birthday.” I feel my eyes water (as they do every time I read the card), and then look at the added words, written with orange and blue magic markers. In blue she writes: “Mom, when I saw this card I immediately thought of you, because it says exactly what I think of you. I am blessed to not only know you, but to have you for my mom!”

The words from both my children never fail to touch me deep deep down in my gut, and I allow myself a good cry for three minutes.

I have a pile of at least 20 cards I could go through, from husband, the kids, my mom, friends, that remind me how extremely fortunate I am.

If I’m down and having a particularly tough day, I don’t need to go to the medicine cabinet for a pill, a picker upper. I just go to my bra drawer.

That’s where I always find lots of firm support.

Football and Hits

/ roughwighting / 10 Comments

I’m a middle-aged woman who can’t watch violent movies and who shies away from angry words or, really, any kind of confrontation.

But, I absolutely LOVE football. Go figure!

My love affair began in 1985, living in San Francisco, watching Joe Montana and the 49ers.

Of course, I’d watched football before then – didn’t ‘get’ it. What was the fuss all about?  I dated a quarterback in high school. He was cute, and my popularity increased because I was seen with the BMOC, but the football games were for hot dogs, dancing to the band, and dishing about the cheerleaders, not watching the game.

In college I went out with a guy who tried to inspire passion through round pretzels. No, really. He wanted me to understand the game of football, so he pulled out a bag of those small round pretzels (do they make those kind anymore?) and made the dorm lobby’s glass-topped table a football field.

“Here’s the quarterback,” he’d try. “Now this guy on defense will try and get away from the offensive line..” (the pretzels would be moved in position) “and hit the quarterback so he can’t throw the ball.”

The guy lost me at “hit.” Any game that involved hitting just wasn’t my cup of tea, or in those days, my mug of beer.

But Montana happened, and then Steve Young, and ‘The Catch,’ and 49er fever throughout the Bay Area. I had an ‘aha’ moment, and I began to love football, and its strategy, and understand the necessity of hits.

Segue to this past weekend, with two exciting football playoff games, a New England friend visiting me, a TV in a sun-filled Bay Area condo, and pure silliness.

MA and I began to root for different teams in the beginning of the afternoon, but by the end of the day, I’d pulled her onto my side. We danced with a field goal, pranced with a touchdown, sang bird tunes with a first down, and groaned like sick seals after a sack.

The man of the house, not a football fan like his darling wife (after all, he never had a pretzel lesson, nor did he understand the appeal of the amazing male physiques, ur, athletes) hid in the other room with the newspaper and a good book. But I did see him hide a smile once or twice.

The moral of my post is this: hits can be good, if used properly in Football.

Or Blogs.

Roughwighting has been “hit” over 2,100 times! (That means a reader goes directly into my blog and reads my post. WordPress then documents a “hit.”)

I thank all of you who read my wighting words in my blog and enjoy them, who comment when moved, who are touched in some small way from my shared revelations.

Hit me again.

And Go Patriots!

My grandson and his dad prepare for the Superbowl.

 

 

 

Song of Sorrow

/ roughwighting / 11 Comments

 Early morning walk down the snow-filled street

No cars, no people, nobody but my dog and me

Tiny white flakes fall like dust on our hair

The crunch of my boots follows us into the silence.

Trees stand like white-haired sentries, watching

And then the plaintive song of a lonely bird –

One syllable high, second one low, over and over

Like a call, a question, a cry.

 Its mate is lost, in the snow, in the woods

Gone, as the bird calls and waits, calls and waits

We trudge on, leaving the song of sorrow

Behind us.

Nap Time

/ roughwighting / 9 Comments

Have you noticed how the sleep of babies is so total, so full of abandon? I never tire of watching my grandbabies sleep, although it’s nerve racking.

For instance, near nap time, little year-old Sophie roams the room like a truck driver on 10-cups of coffee, then plops on the floor and exclaims, ‘bitty bah dee duh rre tum tum toe!” She is quite certain that whatever she has said is philosophically salient, and I tend to agree with her.

But when it’s time to put her down for her nap, she fights it like that same truck driver now in his caffeine crash. Sophie is sure that her time would be most well spent continuing to smile and laugh and impart her baby wisdom. But I know better. I know that any second, the baby beauty will become a monster beast, so I am determined to put said baby down for a nap before the ugly transformation occurs.

Sweet Sophie cuddles in my arms until we approach her bedroom and I start closing the blinds; then she cries as if she’s been in this torture chamber before, and she can’t, just can’t have her toes broken again.

I try some sweet talk, which is rejected with vehement protestations, and so I gently release the writhing screaming banshee into the crib. She peers up at me, one tiny baby tear falling down her face, with an expression that says, “How could you do such a horrid horrid thing to me?” The look is so scathing, laced with hurt, that I avert my eyes and whisper, like the coward that I am,  “nighty night, have a good nap!” and race out of there as if being attacked by a host of hungry hornets.

Then the wait begins. Generally, the screams last less than a minute. I stand in the kitchen as if I’m baking or cleaning, but actually I’m just listening attentively. The next 2 minutes are low-pitched complains. “Gr pla koey dkod.” I don’t want to even guess what she’s saying about me.

And finally silence. Now that I’m a seasoned grandmother of three years, I know better, but before, as a newbie, I used to tiptoe in after just 5 minutes of silence and look down at the little angel, sound asleep. Until suddenly, she’d open her huge blue eyes, send a look to me like ‘aha!’ and jump on her knees, rewinding her protests from just a short while earlier.

Now, in my learned wisdom, I find something to do for at least 8 minutes. THEN I tiptoe into my granddaughter’s room, ear pricked for any sound other than the soft sighs of a sleeping baby. If all is clear, I avoid the creaking floorboards and stand on the rug, looking at this new human being who sleeps as if she lives in paradise.

Her arms are flung above her head in complete comfort. Ah, to have shoulders like that once more. Her chubby legs are covered in a soft fuzzy blanket up to her chin. Her mouth puckers into a pink rosebud. Long eyelashes curl over her softly closed eyes, and I thank God for the opportunity to witness this sleeping bundle of love.