Flying alone
The woman sitting in the seat next to mine that day wore dark sunglasses that covered half of her face. An animal-print scarf, wrapped and knotted tightly around her neck, puffed out from the open collar of her crisp white button-up blouse. Her legs were crossed, held tightly at the knees, and she impatiently bounced her heeled right foot up and down in the aisle.
I don’t remember what I was wearing, but it was probably comfortable because I always fly in comfort clothes, and my hair was probably disheveled, because that’s its natural state. I also don’t enjoy checking bags, so instead I push the limits on carry-on luggage, typically toting an overnight bag, a hefty tote bag with my laptop and a smaller purse stuffed inside.
Moments before as I entered the plane, holding my boarding pass in hand, I glanced at it, then at the seat numbers along the overhead storage, then to the empty seat next to the woman in the dark glasses. She got the idea and got up so that I could take my seat.
“Thank God you’re not a child,” she said as she sat back down, stretching out the word child in the way rich people in movies might.
“Oh. Okay.” I laughed a little, then worked at jamming my bags under the seat in front of me.
Flying alone always feels a bit like an adventure. You can be anyone you want to be, really, because how would the person next to you ever know that you were lying. Despite that, I’ve never lied to someone on a plane – just been thrilled by the possibility of it.
The woman began a conversation, and somehow as the plane filled, I learned that she was travelling to San Francisco to meet the editor of her forthcoming book, which would be titled Never Again, Again, Again. I kind of laughed. It’s about genocide, she said. I stopped laughing.
With the plane nearly full, the flight attendant addressed the passengers over the intercom. She needed volunteers to move seats so that she could seat a mother and daughter next to each other. I looked at the mother’s worried face and at the little girl, about seven, standing in front of her. I raised a hand and stood simultaneously.
“I’ll go,” I said as I crawled over the legs of the author and made my way toward the back, where I sat sandwiched between a 20-something who never took out his earbuds, even when devices were off, and a man in a suit who frowned at his computer screen for most of the flight. I pulled out a book and enjoyed feeling alone.
Inspired by the book Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life, I assign my American Studies students 26 short pieces of creative nonfiction over the course of the year, each entry titled with the next letter of the alphabet. My hope is that they will develop a collection of personal stories they can mine for ideas when we work on personal (college) essays at the end of the year. In an effort to practice what I preach, I’m following along with their Ordinary Life Project.
Michelle Balmeo 