I had to fly in a plane to see my sister in North Carolina. I had not been on a plane since I was five years old, and that experience was traumatic. As I entered the airport, baggage trailing behind me, I could feel my heart beating faster and faster as I got in line to get my ticket. I decided to see her on my birthday. I would have driven, but such a ride would have taken 16 hours. I wasn’t prepared for that. So, instead, I needed a quicker route: to get on a plane. I get on the plane, and my seat is near the window.
I get a bird’s-eye view of everything happening, from takeoff to being in the air. When it is time for the plane to take off, my heart continues to beat faster. I took ten deep breaths, but the engine’s sound distracted me, and my breaths were shallow. With the plane moving, the sounds it made, and the steward moving back and forth on the aisles, one breath is all I can afford to take.
The wheels lift, no longer touching the ground, and this 2-ton vehicle is in the air like a bird ascending. Immediately, my mind starts to wander and think about what seems impossible.
I take for granted, without even a thought, how we get from point A to point B by air, doing what the birds do when they flock North and South in migration. As we were being lifted further and further into the clouds, the ground I once stood on became…
