One Girl Revolution

I used to like watching airplanes.

Being afraid of heights, I've never particularly enjoyed flying in them, but watching them used to be another matter entirely. Airplanes were cool. They still are, if you think about it. The physics involved are incredible. Just looking at an airplane on the ground, you wonder how anything that massive could get 4 feet in the air, much less 40,000. But they do. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of times a day, humans defy gravity and board massive metal machines that take us just about anywhere. It's its own miracle, in a way.

I remember my Dad telling me about it years ago when I was young. We'd sit on my grandmother's back porch, a man and his pig-tailed, inquisitive daughter, staring at the sky and pointing out vapor trails. I'd ask Dad where the planes were going, who was on them, what they'd do when they got there. "I don't know," he'd say. "Maybe they're going to New York or Florida to see their families or go on another plane. Maybe they're going to another country."

I'd sit there and wonder about that. Another city, another country. Someplace new and exciting and fun, like the places I read about or saw on TV. New York with its Statue of Liberty and buildings that went on up, up and forever. London - sophisticated and beautiful, home of Big Ben and those funny double decker buses and the red phone booths I adored. Tokyo, so far away that it seemed like another planet. Or maybe Mexico, where Mom and Dad went after their wedding, back when they were still happy together. Airplanes could take you anywhere.

When I was bored or lonely, I'd look at the sky and try to find an airplane. And I'd make up a story about where it was going, who was on it, what they'd do when they got there. They were always happy stories. Everyone always landed safely. They always had adventures in a beautiful, glittering city before they got back on another plane and went home.

They always went home.

My fascination with airplanes continued into my teen years. They symbolized freedom then. I'd find myself watching for the friendly, familiar vapor trails when I was so thoroughly sick of life that I just wanted to disappear. I'd look up and wonder about the people on the planes, if any of them had ever been in the same boat as me, stuck in a town that they hated, going to school in a place where everyone thought you were a freak. Those airplanes could get me out of here, if I had the money and a way to get to the airport. Just pack up a bag and sail away in the air, off for New York or London or Tokyo or wherever the hell I felt like going, because wherever it was, it had to be better than here.

I flew to Europe and back two times in high school. Both times we flew into Newark International Airport. And I learned the pleasure of flying over a city, seeing the buildings from up above, watching cars and boats tiny as ants scurry along the streets or chug along in the ocean. And even tinier, so small I couldn't see them, were the people. The people with their lives, their adventures, their stories. All of them had stories. Something about seeing that city made my heart swell up with love, and I would put my fingers on the cold glass of the airplane window and wish them all happy endings, just as I would as a child. Happy endings, happy landings. I love you all.

College happened, as it does with most of us these days. I didn't have much time to look for vapor trails. And besides, I didn't want anyone to know about my stories. You can't make friends if people know that you're still a pig-tailed little girl at her grandma's house, holding her Daddy's hand and pointing to airplanes and saying, "What about that one, Daddy? Where is that one going?" I was in college now. I was an adult. Time to start acting like one.

But there were still times that I would look up, watch the planes flying above our rural corner of Nowhere, our little Shire in the foothills, and wonder. I'd try to figure out directions in my head, calculate the nearest city, wonder if they were flying into Newark, wish them luck navigating that place if that's indeed where they were headed. I'd think about my own plans to study abroad. I hated flying, but I wasn't going to let it stand in the way of fulfilling my dream. It was stupid to let a fear of flying keep me from doing something I'd always wanted to do.

And I was thinking about this one morning in September of my junior year when my friend was flipping through channels and I saw something. I told her to go back, because I could have sworn I saw smoke coming from a building.

So we went back. And there was smoke coming out of a building. And Katie Couric was talking to a woman who was saying a plane flew into the side of it. Couric was saying that it was probably a small passenger jet, some sort of accident. But it didn't seem right to me - no fog, no rain. It was a beautiful day, sunny and clear. If the pilot had a heart attack or something, then maybe-

And that was when I saw the other one. A huge passenger jet, flying silently, it seemed, arching around. It was beautiful, that arc, smooth and controlled. Almost as if it were...

Purposeful.

There was an explosion, a burst of fire and smoke and debris raining down and a woman screaming hysterically on the television. My mind flashed to my brother as a toddler, playing with one of his favorite toys, a cheap plastic airplane that with the flick of a switch would open and lower some stairs, then close the doors and taxi, accompanied by a high-pitched squealing, roaring noise. "Airplane!" he would squeal happily, grabbing the thing and holding it. "Airplane, airplane, airplane!"

Airplane.

I want Daddy.

A few months ago, I was parking my car outside of Browns Stadium, getting ready to go volunteer at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I got out of my car and was stuffing my phone into my purse when I heard a noise. I looked up into the sky and saw an airplane headed in the direction of our main airport. The nose was pointed at the Key Bank building, one of our tallest.

And for a few moments, the day fell away as I stood rooted to the spot, too panicked to even move. Airplane. Building. That horrible screaming.

But there was nothing. The airplane was too high. Just passing through, thank you. Off to deliver passengers to have an adventure in your fair city. Happy endings. Happy landings. We love you all.

I waited until it passed safely overhead before trotting to the Rock Hall. If anyone had asked, I would have told them it was because I didn't want to be late. But that's not what I was thinking.

I needed to know that it was safe.

I try not to look at airplanes anymore.

( Goodbye Blue Sky )