Dropping Below The Clouds :: February 10th, 2002 ::
I’d gotten three hours of sleep the night before, I’d ridden down to Chicago, I’d taken a flight from Midway, an airport that seemed only slightly bigger than a parking lot at the mall. I was served soft drinks by middle-aged, bearded stewards dressed in cardigan sweaters and button-down shirts. I finished my book on the plane, reading until my sinus headache became unbearable. I tried to sleep, but, seated next to the bathroom, I was jolted awake every time the door slammed shut, every time struck by dream in which I was on a shooting range and gunmen had decided to turn their gunfire on me. Clearly, I would be up for the rest of the flight, left to endure the doors shut carelessly by off-balance passengers and the pain throbbing behind my eyes.
It went on like this. I watched the front range of the Rockies pass below. All the while my head hurt, my heart beat more quickly than I thought was healthy. I wondered more than once whether this was flight anxiety mixed with exhaustion and dehydration, or if there was something seriously wrong. The possibility that they would have to land the plane in Boise or Salt Lake City so someone could attend to my as-yet-unknown obscure medical condition seemed disconcertingly possible.
But I felt better once our initial descent was announced. We’d been flying over our second weather system, which shook the plane and caused the captain to suggest that we remain in our seats. Shortly into our decline, the plane stopped shaking and I felt the pressure in my head abate, and visions of my being the subject of a medical emergency in some unfamiliar, unscheduled city quietly faded. I looked over a snow covered mountain range. I knew that soon the landscape would plateau, turn green, then become more urban. the 757 would fly over downtown, circle, and land at SEA TAC. I would get to the airport and find my girlfriend there.
In between then and now, she took me by surprise as I got off the escalator in the airport. We left, I ate, then collapsed in the middle of the afternoon. We’ve been going through a cycle of doing everything followed by doing nothing. As I write this, it’s two days later and I’m acclimated to the town. Though it’s for different reasons, the feeling of relief and anticipation, which I felt as I was dropping below the clouds, has endured, and I’m happier than ever to be here.
