Disconnecting Flights

I stared straight ahead at the Polynesian beauty buckled in across from me in the flight attendant seat. Her older, plainer, and hence more credible colleague had stood over me and my daughter earlier, making sure we read the regulations regarding competency to be placed in charge of the emergency exit. This was serious business; I was determined to look lucid and capable. certain that my wrinkles and dark circles gave me a bit of an edge -- an air of maturity, calmness in crisis.

I'll do anything for a little bet of extra leg room -- even contemplate what they mean when they tell us not to send folks down the inflatable slide -- which would probably come down when we opened the door -- if we peek out the little round window and see water. Or, I would imagine, if we peek out and see, up close, the puffy rolling countryside of clouds, but she was no doubt too decent to mention something so obvious. Ahh, but why dwell on death when I'd be stretching my legs out for the next eight hours. I kept nodding like an ass kissing school girl. There was no way this flight attendant was going to know, before it was too late, that the emergency workers in row 34 would likely soon be in an ambien induced stupor.

Frankly the conversation had been a bit surreal, but no more surreal than the feeling I had when we lifted off from the island of Honshu, a tiny land mass so far from home. My son is still down there I wanted to scream, but English was a distant second language on this flight, and I didn't want them panicking and releasing the latch on that door. Water or not, I'd be the first one down, and I sure wouldn't be hanging around to direct traffic.

My recent trip to Japan was encouraging in that I finally realized it is, indeed, on planet Earth, and not quite as alien as I had imagined. It is, however, about as far, geographically, as a place can be from where I am, at least in the northern hemisphere. Lifting off from that seemingly minute chunk of land in the sea made me gasp; I felt as if I had suddenly become unglued, irrevocably separated from my son who, only hours ago, had allowed himself to be wrapped up for a few moments in a desperate maternal hug. Breaking that connection was difficult; embarking on the journey across the damn date line and halfway around the world was excruciating. Had I paid better attention to the flight attendant's instructions, I might well have abused my brief training as emergency row guardian and heaved open the giant door, slid back down to once again plant my feet where my son has temporarily planted his.

I persevered -- maybe because I was still within the Japanese borders and people don't steal or recklessly endanger others there -- and remained fastened into my seat, reminding myself that connections don't necessarily require physical nearness, especially in this day and age. In theory. I busied myself with fantasies of my next trip halfway around the world, willed myself to fall into that long awaited ambien stupor (still waiting, by the way, but at least I would have been ready to perform my emergency row duties at a moment's notice). My weepiness subsided, and I settled in, comforted at least by the sight of my daughter's drooling face flopped against my shoulder. We may have been ready to kill each other before she fell asleep, but there was still the gluey bond of physical proximity keeping us close.

And there is always technology to fill in the gaps. A warm hug texted over thousands of miles, or even two blocks, a picture on the home screen that keeps a sweet memory alive indefinitely. Always, that is, until that little electronic rectangle that has literally become a part of you somehow disappears, along with its rows of photographs and long strings of phone numbers and emails. Five days without a cell phone; when I tell people this -- even people who remember, as I do, the days of busy signals and no voice mail (and walking five miles to school every day, up hill both ways) -- they groan with sympathy. It's difficult for any of us to imagine how I possibly managed that long, so disconnected.

The replacement phone has miraculously arrived, much to the relief, mostly, of my eighty-one year old mother, who has been as baffled as anyone by my ability to survive without it. I spent my insomniac hours last night refilling my SIM card with numbers and emails, preparing to be wrapped up, once again, in life's cyber embrace. Restoring my connections, theoretically.

And I daydream, still, of touching down again -- soon, I hope -- in Japan.