Recycled Air

I love flying, but on the way to and from Belize I found myself strangely nervous -- clutching the seat when we hit turbulence, imagining that we were going to crash every time the engine noise changed or we descended a little. Maybe I was picking up on Mum's nervousness or Dad's irritability, maybe I was just thinking too much about being in a metal box hurtling through the air over 10 000 feet above the ground, maybe I ate some bad eggs for breakfast -- whatever it was, I understood for the first time how people could be scared of flying.

Knuckles clenched to white
As the landing gear retract for flight
My head's a balloon
Inflating with the altitude

We had a five hour layover in Charlotte, which made everyone a bit cranky (we're all accustomed enough with air travel to be annoyed that getting from Central America to Toronto takes a whole day), so when we finally got on the plane bound for Toronto there was a sense of relief. It was a good vacation, but now it was time to get home.

For the first time on our flights, I got the window seat, and it was well worth it. The sun had gone down, and it was the July 4th weekend, so I got to see the spider's web network of streetlights and cities as well as fireworks bursting into the air. It's funny how small they look from above-- like the little sparks you sometimes see on a dry winter's night underneath wool blankets. We flew right over Pittsburgh, a city which I've never been to, but identified simply by asking Mum what American city had a baseball stadium at the confluence of three rivers. It was beautiful and serene, an atmosphere helped by that fact that I was listening to Postal Service's "Recycled Air":

I watch the patchwork farms' slow fade
Into the ocean's arms
And from here they can't see me stare
The stale taste of recycled air

That's the second time I've had a Postal Service song perfectly match my mood and location. There was the quiet unease of flying, the voyeuristic excitment of seeing everything from above, the slight nostalgic air of leaving, of ending, of conclusions. It was a good moment, and one worth remembering.

That last flight also made me aware of other people, thanks to a strange note I found in the pocket in front of my seat. Written in girlish capital letters on purple and green paper, here's an excerpt from the letter I found:

"What a flight. No longer than I'm out of the car with Gi and I'm drinking. Almost 5 months I have sober and the day I go home I fuck it all up. I don't want to stop. I want to do cocaine and drink. I want to do it and I don't want any consequences for it... ....I love Randy more than blow -- I love my family more than blow -- yet it calls my name. It calls to me and makes me want it. I hate I ever tried it. I fuckin' hate it."

Sorry for the harsh language, but it's the kind of note that wouldn't read right if it had been censored. Needless to say, it was a bit of a shocking note for straight-laced good-girl me. The air on these planes really is recycled; I sat in the same seat as a recovering addict who was in danger of falling off the rails. I was in her place, and I never would have known it if she hadn't left her rambling, semi-incoherent thoughts behind.

I'm glad she did, as frightening as they are. I don't know her name, but I feel connected to her now. I want her to succeed, to beat back the demon of addiction and rebuild her life. I wish her well, wherever she is.

For me, everything comes back to human connection. Most of my Belize posts have focussed on stuff I did and saw, but what I really love is something I could have gotten without ever leaving home. I met people, some who didn't let me see beyond their masks, and some who let me see more of them than I ever had before. I don't think I'll ever know Meghan's family well, but at least I have more of a sense of them as people. I liked being able to wander over to Geoff and Meghan's house and feel like they enjoyed my random visits (except of course when I visited too early on the morning of the wedding, but even then I was recieved politely and just as politely encouraged to leave ;).

The last person who I had a real conversation with on Caye Caulker was a man who was in line with me to buy johnny-cakes. He talked to me about taking care of his brother, who was also a drug addict. An hour later, I shared a boat off the island with a missionary group from Texas -- young men and women who I was silently judging until one pulled a stuffed animal out of her backpack to helpquiet a crying child sitting next to her. Unlike many Christians, I tend to harshly judge people of my own faith, but that one gesture made me realize I was doing exactly what I was condemning them for -- making unfounded and insulting assumptions about stangers.

But making strangers into people you can recognize and identify with is what I want my life to be all about. It's hard to know you've ever really gotten to know someone, but even if the communication's flawed, even if the people are so broken it hurts to learn about them, I still want to know. The world's too small a place, the air is too recycled, for me to spend my days trying to ignore my fellow people.