Flight Risk

Last December 2019, I boarded a flight from LAX to Santa Rosa in the evening. It was dark and earlier in the day, I had sent my sister off to catch her flight home, given a speech at a national event, and walked from the LA Convention Center back to our hotel to check out. I went through the paces of traffic and airports in a daze, preoccupied by a public relations crisis that threatened to derail my life’s work. Worse yet, the attack was based purely upon lies and revenge that had zero to do with me. And still, it was my problem.

The moment felt scurrilous. Out of hand. Lies threatened to overrun truth. I was a bit shattered and reduced to 8 year old me, foot stomping as “That’s Not Fair” barreled through my head and pummeled my heart.

And let us be clear: it was not a good look on me.

I boarded the plane late into the evening, paying zero attention to those with me. I had been flying constantly for 18 months and had grown airport wizened. I loved it. It was uncomfortable and interesting and dull and beautiful. I never failed to push my window shade up to take in the view of 30,000 feet.

America. We are so beautiful from above.

It was a full moon that night. I know this because as we began to circle my home airport, I opened the shade again and relaxed with relief as we descended into the space above the fog layer. I am not a nervous flyer these days. I am anxious to get my stuff into my car and head home to my husband and our perfect dogs.

I waited while we tucked beneath the fog layer and felt my heart flip a bit as the skies went from moon bright to Casablanca fog brown. We fled downward.

Then.

We shot upwards back up up up into the sky. We banked hard and fighter pilot fast. Silent. No words. This was so unusual and yet, one hangs in, hangs on, and believes in the expertise of the pilot, the engineer, and the ground crew. “Okay” I thought. “That’s fine.” “Breathe.”

The pilot finally comes on and explains he just cannot see well through the fog enough to land. All of the parts have to come together. We are heading back to Los Angeles. The terrifying moment is done. I think “Oh fuck no. Ok. I can. Damn. What do I have tomorrow? I am so tired. Damnit. Okay. No. Ugh. Fine.”

Our plane hurls back to LA and within moments, seems to steady her path. I hear murmurs from passengers, but it is clear we are in the process of acceptance.

It is what it is.

I watch out the window as the mountains of Sonoma scroll away. We are travelling above the fog layer. It is beautiful and eerily bright. I am awed and so very tired.

And then.

We bank hard again, flying — not floating — above the sky as we do a giant majestic terrifying U-Turn and rolling trajectory back towards the mountains.

It is viscerally clear we are being flown by a human as opposed to being operated by a system.

I realize we are going to crash. And let’s face it, we don’t crash and live for the most part. We just don’t. It’s enough to make me chuckle lightly through the Safety Video. It’s the gamble we choose when we board a plane, ride a train, drive a car. Love a person. It just is what it is. Just is.

I think, “How do I tell my husband I am going to die?” As in, HOW? Messenger? Text? Email? What do other people do?” I start to audit my apps for the best one as I compose the message in my head and weigh the risks of hitting “send” in case I live. How do I say goodbye and be cool about it?

The pilot comes on our overhead and explains he has decided to “try” to land the plane in Santa Rosa. I lean into the couple in the row in front of me and they are staring back, big eyed and anxious. I say, “Who doesn’t love a ‘college try’ on an airplane landing?” We laugh nervously and intimately, our eyes lock and our ears attuned as the passengers go dead silent.

We are aware of the tenuity of our existence.

My life does not flash before my eyes. I find myself not writing that One Message but instead scrolling through my photos, swiftly. I love them. My people. My heart. My life.

I realize the message I need right then is for me: It is Good to Have a Life. To have People. To have a Marriage and Children and Dogs.

Lies don’t matter.

This does. This counts.

This.

I stare into my Life Photos as our plane hurls once again through the fog layer. Minutes pass. One. Maybe three. Perhaps ten. I see the thick fog raging past my open shade and I stare. I listen. This Is It. Or This is Not It. I don’t know. I have no control or say in it.

But then we break through the fog just as our wheels touch the surface of the runway.

Silence is followed by breathing and then clapping. I am happy to clap at a landing for the first time. I am no longer the weary traveler but instead the Disney-bound 3 year old. I am tired and grateful and on the verge of tears. I am here. We are fine.

A few seconds pass and a toddler in the last row yells, “I DIE” “I DIE” and I think, “Yes, but also No.”

As I drive home that night, I grip the wheel and squint my eyes to navigate Hwy 12 carefully. I am a believer of life and signs. I cannot shake my overwhelming sense of foreboding. I don’t know why, but I am positive the event is not behind me but instead in front. I wonder about the metaphor of what just happened and I know for sure it is a lesson and it scares me.

After 12am, I crawl into bed beside my sleeping husband. I am relieved and scared and resolved. I know I could wake him and process it, but I cannot even deal with it because I am sure it is incomplete. And I am unsure how to tell him I thought I was going to die and searched for the right app to message goodbye. This is not a midnight conversation.

This week marks a full year after that flight. I’ve told few people what happened and instead watched the last year unfold as a metaphorical flight path above a fog layered valley backlit by the moon. Like everyone, I have held tight and stared into the 2-dimensional virtual faces of those I love as we have hurled towards hope and faith, ready to die, only to touch ground at the last minute and survive.

“I DIE! I DIE!” Yes.

But also, No.

Risk averted. For now. Only now.

My foreboding has passed, finally. I see light and a runway.