Hush Now, Child

I want to talk about planes and how great they make me feel.

I’ve never been on a plane for a bad reason, ever.

I’ve only ever flown someplace to visit someone or see something new or stay somewhere I've never stayed before — and that’s exciting.

I love the standardisation of it. Everything packaged. Everything one-serving-only.

Sitting in the window seat, music on, there’s this momentum and electricity behind everything. You are on your way for an extended period of time, but the ending is scheduled. It’s part B of an A, B, C plan.

You have this tiny viewfinder and the world looks entirely smaller and more understandable than it feels when you’re down there. Cars are small parts of roads that lead to highways that lead to other towns — the coastlines, the mountains, the patchwork of farmland and suburban lots. A tiny pool. A barely-visible baseball diamond. All of it. It’s all one big thing you’re looking at.

The world gets bigger. The world gets huge. Your humanity gets huge. Turbulence makes you feel, if even for a second, that you could die. You pass a flock of geese on takeoff and, holy shit, what if you’d hit them? You cross an ocean and what if the plane just fell?

And, more importantly, you’re headed somewhere. You’re headed to someone or someplace or something.

The things you’re capable of doing in the here-and-now are virtually cut off. All you can do is sit.

All you can do is think. And wait. And know that something else is coming very soon.

And I love it.

I love it, I love it, I love it.