Lights on the runway–through the fog and above it–simplify the feat of flying into archaic video game graphics (Pac-Man, specifically): cars as dots of lights mazing steadily along a pre-programmed path (someone should tell us that’s what we look like from above).
Rain reflected in the light of the wings looks like flashes of TV static.
The man in front of me on this mostly empty flight (who goes to Salt Lake City unless it’s the 2002 Olympics or they absolutely have to?) fidgets with the lighting. He has three seats to himself and he’s exploring his options (the hypothetical has come true: if you could turn on any of these overheads without someone complaining, which one would you choose?). I prefer to write in the dark, like when I was a kid and supposed to be sleeping: belly-to-the-floor, trying to catch a glimmer of the hall light from the crack under the door. Now, I bask in this man’s choice of overhead lights (the one on the right and in the middle).
The flight attendant describes the turbulence-to-come as “some good, uneven air.”
Sailing knots above cloud level, you get to understand why sailors use the stars to guide them, where the idea for lighthouses came from. The clouds are patchy like lily pads on still water that allow you, occasionally, to peep what’s beneath (a glimpse of the moon on the water like the spine of a silvery fish and clusters of trees like those below-the-surface seaweed forests). Whenever you feel like life’s unremarkable, you should fly.
The whiskey hits me mid-air, like the slow creep of Novocaine, while the flight attendants are trying to keep us seated with peanuts. No elephant who had to pee would fall for that bribe.
Mid-stream, I notice a changing table tucked up against the wall and think “now there’s something you don’t think about until you have to do it.” As the “Fasten Seatbelt” light bings in the cabin, I brace myself against the narrow bathroom walls for balance, like trees when I’m peeing while camping. I think of my brother stuck on a coast-to-coast flight with a bad bout of food poisoning. Now there’s something you don’t think about until you have to do it. But we do it: find comfort in uncomfortable situations, even when you’re fetal-position sick. Take eight hour flights that should be less than two just to get to someone. Gain perspective from a height that even the birds can’t reach on some good, uneven air.
