Things I Learned While Flying...

Do not watch, the "My mom, Jayne" movie on a plane 4 days after losing your dad.  I made a fumbled and humbled apology to the people sitting around me for the tears.  Turns out watching a movie about a daughter’s love for her fathers and her mother is not such a good idea after just losing your dad.  Made only worse by making the decision to do this while flying from Santa Barbara to Atlanta. Might have been better to watch that alone at home...but here we are.

Once upon a time, I would have needed something like that to conjure up tears or sentimentality.  I would have needed that to get access to that part of myself.  Chances are, today, regardless of the movie, I would have probably cried on the flight anyway.  Nothing like a good hard cry at 37,000 feet surrounded by total strangers that have no idea why the fuck you are bawling or what they should do with the sobbing woman in seat 12B.

I suppose it is all good.   Grief is grief, right?  I mean, I started to think the following:  I wonder how many other people have loved ones dying or just passed on this flight?  How many other people are suffering in silence while they trudge their way across America.  How many other people are slogging through this Sunday?  Probably all of them to some degree or other.  I mean, to be human is to suffer. And in today’s world, there is quite a bit to suffer on about.  I am sure there are people on this flight whose marriages are crumbling, whose children are lost in addiction, who are addicted themselves and hanging on by a tether, who are returning home after the best holiday ever, or perhaps, more likely, the worst.  Perhaps this year was the first year without their wife, their husband, their mother, their father, their child.  Perhaps this whole plane full of humans is winging their way across the country on a wing and a prayer grieving grievous losses.

Why do we do this?  Why do we hide the pain?  If we were all more honest about it, would we be able to appreciate each other’s sorrow more?  Would we get over the incessant need to project an image that isn’t an accurate reflection of what goes on inside of us?  Would we all have a bit more compassion?  Good will?  Willingness to assist?  To see the pain and loss and hardship and be willing, even for a couple minutes to give of ourselves to release the burdens of others?  Or will we all stay in our life lanes, grab all the shit we brought along with us and deplane, remaining strangers that were gathered for a flight, and now back to people we would not recognize if we ever were to see them again.

I see a dangerous thing happening I think . This ability of us to connect in wider and wider circles is killing our humanity.  We have too many choices, too many commitments, too many friends and acquaintances.  We all just have way too much of everything.  It makes me long to move to a part of the world where it lives on less, it thrives on less.  A place where less is more and people understand that more only brings more of everything:  stuff, people, problems, suffering.  All the things.  I mean I guess also happiness but can we ever be truly happy when we are just near missing everyone all the time?

I feel the separateness.  I can feel it as irritation, avoidance, judgment.  I can feel the push to go inside and away and to not extend myself, to hold myself back and away from those about me.  And I know, absolutely and without doubt or reason, that I am the one missing out.  What is that lady next to me like?  What does she enjoy?  Where did she get her gigantic turquoise rings?  Were they gifts or does she buy them for herself?  Does she have love in her life?  Does she feel safe in her home?  Why does she dress in grey and black yet carry a bright pink tote bag that is almost offensive in all its bright cheeriness?

Or what about the guy next to me that has been sleeping the entire flight?  What kind of animal does he have at his feet in the carrier?  Is the animal ok, as he hasn’t checked on it once and it hasn’t made a single sound?  Is there even an animal down there, and if there isn’t why the fuck would be bring an animal carrier on this flight?  Is he flying to Atlanta to bring home a puppy?  A cat?  Is he just really weird about carry on luggage?  Does he not know the difference between a person carry on and an animal crate?  Why is he so tired?  Was he out late drinking?  Fucking?  Insomnia?  Does he work the night shift and now has to fly across the country to get home and get back to work tomorrow?  Is he just bored and would rather sleep in awkward positions that would kill an older person if we tried to sleep like that?  I guess I am glad he was asleep for my crying jag.  He wasn’t disturbed so I am pretty sure I held it in check. (It was a cat in the carrier, the world's calmest, quietest cat).

And I guess perhaps the most important question is why didn’t I reach out to them and ask them any of the above? Why did I choose to sort photos of my dad, to write today’s post and tomorrow’s post, to work on my dad’s eulogy and watch that fucking movie (it was really good, highly recommend! My Mom Jayne).  Why am I so avoidant?  Is this a function of how overwhelming my life feels right now?  Perhaps, but I know that I would likely not talk to anyone if I was in a better space and regardless of my dad’s death.  I would do all the things I did today...just likely without all that crying...

Does the flood of information we are pummeled with each day, along with the insistence to connect, promote, project and sell ourselves make me this way?  Or am I just this way and the world as it is today, just makes me worse?  Honing long standing patterns of behavior into sabres to cut the ties of humanity and render me solo and untethered.

I think I will watch another movie, but alas it is only 58 minutes until we land.  So I guess that will have to wait for another flight, some other day.

I suppose I will go put some time into the eulogy...although I would be a liar if I didn’t share that I dread it and I do not think I can hold it together on this flight if I start that now.  Perhaps I can just sit here and watch the people all around me, observe them, seek to understand them better, meditate on why I am who I am and they are who they are when none of us is really anyone at all...

I can’t help but wonder, am I just nuts, just crazy, just this weirdo that thinks way too fucking much?  Is anyone else here seeing all the missed opportunities for connection to bridge the great divide that exists between us and others?  Perhaps, if I just sit quietly, I will be guided toward whatever connection comes next for me...and if I am honest, maybe I will just get a reprieve and be able to sit still with my pain and loss and heartbreak...all while noticing that this is not unique to me.  This is what it is like to be human...all of us, no exceptions.  Some of us do this better than others, some of us so much more generous with ourselves...some of us as generous as we can be without losing ourselves forever in the process of living...

Again, still...