Rollercoaster or Plane ride. Peace with my fate.

I travel a lot. I have flown more times than I can remember, but today was different. Today was the first time…

Now I don’t know if I should thank my mother for my over active senses or if I should blame it on having four teeth pulled and being drugged up for a few days now.

Either way when I stepped onto that plane today I was not completely at peace with the situation. I just felt strange about this particular flight but I brushed it off and told myself it was me not reacting so well to the meds they gave me for my teeth.

Planes to Ithaca are notorious for being small and confined so being on this plane was nothing new to me however the beratement that my nostrils received was a different story. As I sat looking out the window of seat 11F, I was made aware that I would be crunched up against a stranger for the duration of the flight. I become slightly queasy as an off duty flight attendant settled her self beside me. Her hair was nice, finger waves and bumped curls. Too bad the smell of airport bathroom clung to the very core of her being. The smell of bleach, soap, twenty different types of perfume, foul bodily functions, babies and travel lingered in the air about her and penetrated my bubble of somewhat breathable recycled air. I try to be discreet as I turn my head further into the window looking for an escape but only meeting the cold glass condemning me to stifling, stagnant, putrid air. I turn on the overhead fan but the fume is unrelenting and I retreat into my hoodie. Just then the plane turns off and there is an unsettling silence as the other passengers look around. A large mouthed and hipped woman carries her sweat onto the plane and right into the seat behind me. Now, not only am I enveloped by off duty flight attendant air, add to that the smell of hefty city go-er. She smells of sweat, old cigarettes, fast food and Bengay. She yells into her phone, and my ears pound from the unnecessary volume. The man in front of me has stopped nibbling on his girlfriend’s ear and now sleeps peacefully with his mouth open. Exhaling midday breath into the cacophony of smells that play under my highly attuned nose.

We have been here 40 min, and have not taxied, the plane is silent and the on duty flight attended speaks to us with a nervous shake in her voice. Iree. I may be drugged up but something about this is so off, but what am I to do. I try to sleep. I stick my head all the way down into my hoodie; inhale the smell of myself, body lotion, hair oils and deodorant. I took a shower, go me! We begin to taxi and wait for our turn to take off. The plane is turned on and off multiple times before we get into the air and when they finally turn it on all the way for good, it makes the sound of death. Roaring and rattling in my ear, the voice of the pilot and flight attendant reverberate. It’s entirely too loud and now that the overhead fans are working I get an extra dose of foul air.

Somehow I drift into sleep, only to wake to the feeling of my stomach dropping and my body being lifted out of my seat. Turbulence. Ok, not my first time. I shut my eyes only this time to have my arm grabbed as the plane lurches and lunges in some direction that I am too delirious to discern. The off duty flight attendants’ eyes are bulging out of the sockets and she has accidentally put a vice grip on my arm. She lets go and begins to breathe once the plane has ceased lurching violently and now trembles with a certain confidence that more is to come.

I think “this is not so…” and again I am lurched forward and the plane drops drastically in altitude. I feel a hot mass rise in my throat. There are a few whimpers and exclamations from the passengers on the plane. I place my hands over my stomach and close my eyes. Would you want to know what your death looked like? The plane becomes increasingly more violent.

“Our father who art in heaven, hollowed be thy name, they kingdom come.” So close to your kingdom. The sky, angry, surrounds me. Don’t look down. I look out and see the earth in my peripheral, the heavens opening up to me above. I want my mother to find peace, I want my father to find happiness, I want my grandfather to find comfort, no more pain and my grandmother not to be scared. “Ye thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil for thou art with me” The off duty flight attendant grasps for the tray directly in from of her that has not been lowered. I think to myself, “If we plummet towards land right now, that tray is not going to help you.” “Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against them.” I pray silently as the plane rocks back and forth. Forgive me father for I have sinned. Forgive me father for I had forgotten. Forgive me father, I do believe.

We hit a clear spot and the on duty attendant, bless her heart, gets up and hands out drinks to those who ask. Numerous people order alcoholic beverages. No sooner than the attendant retakes her seat, we hit a worse patch of turbulence. Like a rollercoaster, I see hands waving in the air, as people cling to their seats for support as they are lifted into the air. The sky is so underestimated. Water and fire are so feared. Air, so powerful, just like the foul stench, has the power to turn a life upside down. The lady in isle 9 spills her drink on the man to her left. The man in isle 5 throws up in one of the brown paper bags. A nervous laugh is heard and then silence. The sound of a struggling plane and the off duty flight attendant beside me popping pills. The hefty city go-er has fallen silent and the man with the midday breath holds his girlfriend tight. I see a tear on the face of a young girl and the laughter on the face of the woman who spilled the drink and the recipient of the unintentional assault. I look out the window, the separation of earth and sky and was one with whatever my fate was to be.