Mile High Club

Mile High Club/ Boot Camp for Gimps

09/30/2011

Yesterday I got on an airplane. This might seem newsworthy if, for instance, I have a phobia of flying, or if I had never flown before.  Neither of these scenarios is true.  Flight phobias confuse me.  First of all, the chances of a plane crash are impossibly small.  It is more risky to walk out of your front door (in my neighborhood anyway.) Secondly, as the daughter of a Belgian immigrant, I have been flying for as long as I can remember.  I was flying even back in the days when, much to my adolescent delight, one could smoke cigarettes on the long flight from Washington D.C. to Brussels.  In addition, death by plane crash has always seemed to me a far more appealing alternative than a long, slow demise by disease that robs you of life slowly, one excruciating day at a time. I flew from D.C. to Phoenix days after the attacks of 9/11/2001- without fear. I've always been a good flyer, and have reveled in coast-to-coast flights that allow me a few sacred hours to catch up on celebrity gossip, sleep, and be catered to with junk-food snacks and bad coffee between naps.

I haven't flown for years now, because I have been too uncertain that my body would be able.  The idea of being pushed around in a wheelchair by an underpaid stranger; negotiating security when taking off or putting on my own shoes can be literally impossible at the times when my left foot acts and feels like a floppy brick; and hauling luggage around when the weight of my own body exhausts me, it all just seemed like too much to manage.  A friend of mine, a retired flight attendant, travel aficionado, and person with advanced MS, told me that he believed he had one last international flight left in him. At least twenty years younger than him and less disabled, I was awed and humbled by his faith in his ability to travel, at least one more time.  My dreams of traveling to Costa Rica, Italy, and Peru had been long dismissed, collateral damage but seemingly less important than the day-to- day to losses. Even flying domestically, to visit family within a few hours by plane, seemed out of reach. I didn't want to verify one more thing I could no longer do. I voluntarily gave up air travel rather than face my unbearable fear that if I tried to fly, I would learn that I could no longer move freely throughout the world.

So why did I get on a plane yesterday, to visit my sister in Indiana?  There are so many levels of reasons that I can't even begin.  How I got on the plane, and ended up here, sitting in my sister's guest room, overwhelmed with gratitude and hope, is more important.  It started with me sitting on the kitchen floor, unable to shove floppy brick foot into my sneaker, and crying because I was terrified and homesick already.  My son gathered everyone into a "hug sandwich" for me, and then raced off to draw a family portrait to comfort me on my trip.  Sandra wrestled the floppy brick into my shoe, produced a box of tissues, and marched me to the car.  "You can do it," she insisted.  "What if I can't? What if there is no one to push me to the gate? What if I can't stop kicking the seat in front of me when my leg spasms start? What if I am unable to move when it is time to disembark?" What if my last shred of independence is demonstrated to be irrevocably lost and my world shrinks down to the size of our living room?

She pulled up to curbside check-in and started unloading my bags to the curb.  WTF?? Curb-side check-in? What is this, boot camp for gimps? I was a terrified child and she was dropping me off on the side of the street?  "Tough love," she stated, as she kissed me and got back in the car. "You can do this.  Buh-bye!"

Shell-shocked, I managed to pull my jaw off of the floor, wipe my nose with the full-size tissue box she'd cleverly placed at the top of my carry-on, and get my attitude on.  "F- that, I better figure out how to get on that damn plane because apparently I'm on my own here." She's an evil genius, that Sandra, because she knows that if my righteous determination kicks in, my fear will get its ass kicked.  Deep breath.  No room for self-doubt.  Sandra laid down the gauntlet and I would prevail.  Show time.

Made it past security with an intimate caress by the TSA employee assigned especially for me; paid $50 for magazines, candy, and a bottle of water; fastened my seat belt and woke up in Indiana. HAH. I made it.  Nothing tragic, humiliating, or even vaguely unpleasant occurred (unless you consider 50 bucks for essentially nothing unpleasant, but in relative terms, who cares?). I made it.  I can travel. I did travel. By myself. I am still a grown- up, with the ability to go where I want to go. It felt like enlightenment.  An enormous burden lifted.  Light into darkness. Grace.

It's autumn here, in the middle of the country.  I've sent pictures home to prove it.  When I left Phoenix, it was 105 degrees (late September folks, for those of you who think the warmth sounds delightful).  My kids have never seen the brilliant palette of autumn. I love the Fall.  It's my favorite season.  The air smells of discovery; that the world is transforming daily is impossible to ignore. The Earth feels like an adolescent, bursting with energy and big, implausible, hopelessly romantic ideas.

Fall partly demands our sharp attention so adamantly because it does not last very long.    Summer days go on without end, and it is difficult to believe you will ever see those precocious little crocuses peek out when the streets have been lined with grimy snow for months.  But autumn; blink and it's gone.  One happy day you point out the first red leaf, but don't get distracted, because the next time you look the trees are bare and the leaves crumble to brown dust in your wake. No where is this more true than Phoenix, where I have planted no fewer than 3 giant trees that promise to accept 80-90 degrees as appropriate evolution weather. Somewhere in November, I shout to the kids-  "Look guys, the leaves are changing color!" Out of kindness, they give a perfunctory glance upwards.  "Yep," says Rudy, "it's almost my birthday.  Now about that cat...."

I love autumn because it stands tribute to impermanence.  Autumn spreads her peacock tail and dazzled us, then slips out the back while Winter charges in uninvited and announces himself. 

This Fall in particular is special because my sister, who hates change and has invested tremendous parts of herself to turn a boring old suburban house into a stunning garden and birding venue, will be moving.  Her new home is a funky old thing, in a funky-fabulous neighborhood in the heart of town, between the beautiful IU campus and the shockingly fabulous downtown boutiques. I, who adore funky, idiosyncratic, historic old homes, think her new place is dreamy. It is a challenge and a promise I'd pursue in a heartbeat.  But I've always been a little on the impulsive side, and my sis is a planner. But who can plan for love? A person, a place, a house, something that moves you- these things cannot be conveniently scheduled, and if they were they would lose their fairy dust.  Love, like all the important experiences of being human, happens to us and we adapt.  We are often surprised at how little resistance there is, once we agree to evolve. People, places, events...We have no control, and that is why they move us so deeply.  We are forced to face impermanence, regardless of our 'plans.' We are stimulated and terrified, soothed and released from the structures we construct and then rail against.  We are free. How scary, and exhilarating our freedom tastes.  Where do we go, what do we need to know, who is going to guide us?

"Life is a classroom.  We are both student and teacher. Each day is a test. And each day we receive a passing or failing grade in one particular subject: Grace."

When I first read this (on a bottle of body wash, I swear- inspiration is so random,) I balked.  I reflected on what I believe are the daily tests: Integrity, truthfulness, compassion.  Then I thought about Sandra, dropping me off at the curb, trusting where I felt only doubt.  And me, summoning the will to move through my fear, accepting uncertainty and pushing forward anyway, come what may.  My sister, leaving the comfort of home to create more space for time's inevitable march. The leaves crunching under my feet, the trees naked with the promise of another Spring. 

Grace is neither a gift nor a quality.  It is neither the moment when our boundaries disappear, nor the countless moments that we long to be better than we are. Grace is available in every single moment, the abundance that exists even when we fail to notice.  Grace is the proverbially water and we are the fish, so immersed that we think it is something that must be found. Hunger and satiety.  Diagnosis and cure.  Everything lost and the light that illuminates the empty spaces. The only test that ever really matters:  Did you recognize Grace in her many guises? Did you embrace it, learn it, share it? Did you reach into the dark and foreboding spaces and emerge, hands dripping with light?