It may say a lot about me -- or about our culture -- that I never developed a fear of flying after 9/11. On that day in 2001, I was shocked and bewildered, like so many others. I watched the image time and again of the planes sailing into the twin towers. Even after that, I never felt anxious about boarding a plane -- not even on Sept. 12, 2002, when I boarded an 11-hour flight to begin graduate school in England. Some people winced when I told them that date of departure; I guess 9/12 was close enough to 9/11. But I had the same assurance as I always had: My seatbelt would fasten, the flight attendants would go over the guidelines for what to do in case of an emergency, and then an emergency probably wouldn't happen. I knew, of course, that the TSA agents would thoroughly examine everyone's pockets for box cutters. I spent those 11 hours on the plane reading, watching in-flight movies, and otherwise distracting myself from a journey that the average human would have found thrilling and terrifying a century ago. The flight landed in London on schedule.
It was not that trip but another (another of many; I honestly can't remember where I was headed) that inspired "Alaska Airlines Nonstop to LAX," my poem featured this week in the Journal of Radical Wonder. If the particulars of that flight have slipped my memory, then that perhaps proves the point. We spend much of our lives traveling at superhuman speed, and we do it to the extent that it no longer feels superhuman. Perhaps it's a form of reverse survival; the amygdala protects our body by sending panic signals to the brain, and indifference protects our sanity by desensitizing us to panic. The next time you're on a plane, think about the circumstances: You're barreling at a phenomenal speed at an impossible height, on a vessel equipped with enough fuel to cause a massive explosion if it ran into anything. Any person alive before Kitty Hawk would call you the greatest daredevil in history. But on board, the windows block out the sound of air pounding outside, the clouds drift agreeably by, and the ticket that you booked online states that you will land in a certain city at a precise hour and minute. If this moment really stood a chance of ending your life, then the stewardess wouldn't be smiling and offering you ginger ale. Perhaps you traveled by air not long before reading this. Perhaps you drove a car -- something that is statistically far more dangerous than taking a plane. What compelled you was most likely not recklessness but trust. We trust machines, and pilots, and drivers, and above all statistics. In the movie Rain Man, Dustin Hoffman's autistic character rattles off the history of crashes by airlines that he refuses to take. Audiences typically laugh at that scene; we're more inclined to think of the millions of flights that land without incident. "Alaska Airlines Nonstop to LAX" is the final poem of Angels in Seven, a book about the onset of middle age, and its companion piece is the collection's opener, "The Chicago Window Washer Lets His Soap Paintings Stay," about a man who dangles on a cable over the sides of skyscrapers to clean windows for the well-to-do. Both poems are about being suspended in air. Both poems feature characters who face the possibility of death but more or less accept it. When I wrote both poems, as a spring chicken of 36, I imagined that that was what middle age felt like. Eight years later, I can't correct myself much. Everything in "Alaska Airlines Nonstop to LAX" is nonfiction. I wrote it to pass the time while waiting for the plane to land, and all the details -- American Hustle on the in-flight movie, the mountains reflecting light outside -- were what I saw around me. The opening lines of the poem reference 9/11, but more out of bemusement than fear. When those planes took off on that horrific day, how mundane did they seem? What crossword puzzles were being worked on, what magazines leafed through? It's doubtful that anyone on board was thinking about the awesome power of the plane itself, other than, sadly, the hijackers. To murder is to take away the gift of life. To give the gift of life is to allow the privilege of being bored by it. Any time we touch a tarmac safely, we are more likely to begin scrolling through texts than we are to fall down and kiss the ground. We have been spared a devastating fate in the sky, and so we begin looking for distractions on land. That doesn't mean we're fearless. It just means that we have odd criteria for safety. Earlier this year, my family and I went to Honolulu on vacation, and we were given a hotel room many floors up with a remarkable view of the ocean. It also had a remarkable view of the street hundreds of feet below, and after nodding once at the beauty of the horizon, I gingerly moved away from the guardrail. What if it had a screw loose, some small defect that would give way if I leaned against it? I have no fear of flying, but I will admit to being skittish with heights, and if I could articulate the reason for those two facts, then I might hit on some grand truth about how we navigate life. Perhaps if I had made countless trips onto that balcony, thrusting my head forward to catch the breeze, then I would have learned to feel invincible. Perhaps I just needed a stewardess nearby, reciting the instructions for a parachute that I probably wouldn't have to open.
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This is the blog of Michael Miller, a longtime journalist, poet, publisher and teacher. Check here for musings, observations, commentary and assorted bits of gratitude. Archives
July 2023
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