famous people who are
famously afraid of getting
on an airplane have landed
upon something pretty solid.
i, with little renown, am not
one of them, but i can relate
very well to the illogic of such
a fear, having been there. but
i have been there and back again,
turning forty in paris, for example.
finding the romance of italy in the
holy trinity of roma, firenze and
venezia, i became a devout convert.
in and out of london for a cross-
continent trek by train to copenhagen
to begin a stunning baltic cruise, with
stops in stockholm, helsinki, talinn,
st. petersburg and oslo with a final
stop at amsterdam. and there were
separate two-week treks to tokyo
and hong kong. granted, this all
took place within a three year
time-frame over a dozen years
ago. a lot has happened since
the last trip abroad that it’s odd
to frame the severity of what had
become an inability to board an
airplane so that i might arrive
in such a faraway somewhere.
but i know how strong the desire
to get there was within me. and
on paper i understand the years
of working on the solution to that
conundrum. i can still taste the
glory of finally deciding upon a
solution and of stepping on that
first international flight. so this
fear was never a value for me, it
was a detriment, a problem that
i absolutely had to solve. this i
remember. and i have thousands
of graphical depictions of the truth,
that i was there, and many of these
tease my memory into reminiscence,
placing me there. and there. and
there. i can remember, as well, how
insurmountable this fear felt, but also
how i never once allowed that to alter
my belief that i would find a way to
overcome that fear, i was firm in my
confidence that i would get there.
but now i am here. values evolve,
belief systems change, motivation
and desire can dissipate. did i simply
need to prove to myself that i could
accomplish something i took for granted
that i would do, especially once i found
an obstacle that i needed to overcome,
a puzzle i needed to solve, in order to
actually do it? i am trying to understand,
here, now, a dozen years after that most
incredible whirlwind tour of the world. i
am sitting here, frustrated with these
thoughts, forcing myself at them in order
to get at an answer to something. to
rediscover purpose, to gather somewhere
in me the motivation. there are things
that can reframe perspective entirely,
and along with these circumstances
comes the passage of time, which
diminishes everything as we move
toward vapor, toward nonexistence,
or whatever inevitability is. this,
today, seems the enemy to me;
and a brutal one, at that. because
at some point, it is to this enemy
that we each must concede. but
how? this question of how to untangle
myself from these thoughts—or so as
to, better still, given the inevitability—
reconcile them has me more than just
a little bit stumped at times. but my
desires have not faded. and i have
goals. i know more of who i am and
how much better i want to be than i
did when i first set foot on that airplane
to paris. and most of me believes that
i am not only a better person for it, but
a better person for going through this
extended set of circumstances which
has kept me from getting on an airplane
for over a dozen years now, that has
kept me from landing at whatever new
place, has had me instead flailing about,
as in a large body of water, no land in
sight, gasping for breath, finally seeing
land and, for what seems like forever,
exhaustedly swimming steadily toward it.
will i get there? i’ll say yes. today, that
is the only answer there can be. and
when i do, where will i be? i cannot be
certain. and sure, it feels at times like
a devastating setback to have such a
fuzzy goal knowing where i have been,
knowing how much determination i had
of getting there, of feeling so assured of
where i would be when i set foot on the
earth once again. but the exciting part
was getting acquainted with this foreign
environment, the discovery, the education,
and these are things i can do just as well
once i make it to the shore. once i find
myself once again on solid land. how
droll it is to relay repetitively to you
that i am so tired, and how frightening
when doubts arise, about whether or
not i will make it. so i teach myself
the grace, the choreography of
swimming and i believe so intensely
that i can literally taste the sand of
the approaching shore, of the land
that i approach, of the land upon
which i will soon stand. and as it
gets closer, i get hungrier, and i
believe. and once i have learned
all i can from this water, and once
i have learned all i want from this
new place, upon which from my
graceful swim, that will become
a crawl in which i cling to rocks
or the sand of a foreign land,
from which i will rise, get back
upon my feet with my head
in the sky, and explore and
explore and explore...once
i am done i will, replete with
all of this new knowledge,
this education, i will, and
with swagger, board another
flight. and wherever it lands,
so will i.
