Travel(l)ing: privilege and pain

I’ve been traveling a lot this year. For example, I just made two trips from Finland to the US in the space of three weeks. You might not know it on the basis of the miles I log, but I am a very nervous flyer. You wouldn’t guess that my dad was a pilot during World War II, at Guadalcanal. In his typically unsentimental way, he once scoffed at my fear of flying, saying that it was the fastest way to go. Not really that comforting a thought, Dad. Thanks.

My first experience flying was probably the catalyst for this neurotic quirk of mine. Two younger sisters and I were to fly from Los Angeles to Cleveland, alone. Dad walked us onto the plane, made sure our seatbelts were fastened, and left us in the capable hands of the stewardesses. However, Dad never told us what flying would actually feel like. Over Denver, it became so turbulent that our cups started hopping on the trays. Kristy and Kelley asked me, “Kathy, are we going to die?” Ever the responsible oldest sibling, with adult assurance at 14, I said, “Oh no, we’ll be fine.” Meanwhile I had no idea and was actually terrified. I recall that there was a pall over that entire visit with Grandma, and it wasn’t just her new husband’s cigarette smoke. It was knowing that we had to get back on a plane to return home.

The second experience that left its mark was a flight from Corfu to Copenhagen. I had been visiting a good college friend and was on my way back to my boyfriend in Sweden. I noticed a group of three cool-looking Danes get on the plane, sun-tanned and laughing, their ring-leader a gorgeous man with sandy hair and a straw hat. As it turns out, they sat in the row behind me. It was a night flight, and I remember looking out the window wondering why everything was so bright all of a sudden. It was a lighting strike. The plane dropped suddenly (probably not very far) and as Pee-Wee Herman would have said, I screamed real loud. The stewardess came over at the same time as the sandy-haired man behind me reached his arms forward around me and said, “Er De bang?” It turned out he was a doctor, and he sent the stewardess for some medicine: a strong beer. He made me drink it and spent the entire rest of the flight holding me and stroking my arms, explaining in Danish how planes worked in storms. I didn’t remember most of what he said, but I was (terribly) distracted by his soothing voice and hands, and by the medicine, which worked very quickly. At the end of flight I laughingly thanked him and apologized for my foolishness, and he proceeded to invite me to come along with his friends and spend the weekend at his summer cabin. What would have happened if I had decided to tell my boyfriend I was taking a detour? I’ll never know.

There have been other frightening flights, and over the years my fear of flying only got worse, until finally it became a three-month rehearsal of all the things I was doing for the very last time whenever I knew I had to fly. I flung myself headlong into magic thinking and started creating small rituals, like kissing my right hand and pressing it against the outside of the plane as I got in. While in the air I became a frightened animal, curling into a ball, and I was convinced that I had to look out the window to make sure we were still in the air. For a while I tried drinking three shots of whiskey before boarding a plane. That only helped to put me in a state of composed heightened awareness while remaining completely sober during the flight. After disembarking I would feel dehydrated and sick.

Of course, while my children were small, I had to try to hide my fear so I wouldn’t pass on my neurosis to them. I was lucky that they are such excellent travelers, though I do remember the five-hour flight from New York to Los Angeles when my toddler son refused to sleep. I walked up and down the aisles after him for hours on end, it seems. I don’t remember being scared on that flight.

A couple years ago, a doctor prescribed Xanax for me. I have to say that it has changed my life. I’m not a person who enjoys mind-altering drugs of any kind, but this little tablet has given me back months of my life. I don’t count the days until I will be packing my suitcase for the last time anymore. I wonder if I could have taken this job in Finland – with all the flying it entails – if I hadn’t made this discovery. I can actually experience turbulence now as ‘normal’ people do – oh, interesting, the air currents must be acting in this way or that, soon it will be over. I used to be sure that if I 1. read a magazine, 2. closed my eyes or 3. failed to look out the window, the turbulence would get so bad that the plane would be shaken apart.

Alright, that’s enough exposure of my neurotic quirk. I really wanted to talk about my odd trip to Pittsburgh. My daughter had the first of her two Master of Music Performance recitals and they are a big deal, so I really wanted to go. I so seldom get to hear her play anymore – anything that is webcast is generally orchestral, and it is not possible for me to pick out the viola line, never mind her own part in it. 

The adventure started when Lufthansa went on strike and my flights were cancelled. I couldn’t get through to the Lufthansa operators in Finland, and I was starting to give up hope that I would get to go. My brilliant son thought to call the Lufthansa operators in the US with his free minutes from Switzerland, and so, miraculously, he got me booked on a British Airways flight to London and then on to JFK and finally Pittsburgh, with a scheduled arrival time four hours earlier than Lufthansa’s. Of course I lost my good seats in the mix-up and was crammed between two (admittedly pleasant) men for eight hours, but my good friend Xanax helped me to not mind, and I actually slept in that odd position. I got my rental car without mishap and found my DaysInn hotel in Southern Pittsburgh without getting lost (which in Pittsburgh is miraculous). That’s where ‘without incident’ stopped. My first clue that I hadn’t made a wise choice was the fact that the hotel had no elevator, and, as jet-lagged as I was, I had to drag my 45-pound suitcase up the stairs. Then I couldn’t find my room so I leaned against the wall and tried not to cry. A friendly gentleman asked me what was wrong, and I explained. He said he thought there were a couple rooms behind a door that said “no exit”. He was right: my room was outside the motel proper and on an outdoor corridor with a pungent odor of Indian food and a scary-looking stairway that led down into a dark, ominous tunnel. I thanked him and got myself settled in.

There must be something about the first jet-lagged night in the US for me now – in New Haven, there was a 3 a.m. fire alarm my first night there – because I was awaked by a fight in which I heard the words “weed” and “beer” along with choice expletives. All of a sudden a glass object was smashed against my door and I could hear the shards showering the corridor. My first impulse, which I am glad I did not follow, was to get up, open the door, and yell at the people to be quiet because I needed my rest. Instead I lay wide awake the rest of the night, wondering if there was going to be a repeat performance and how sturdy my door was.

In the morning I had a substandard breakfast on a styrofoam plate, reported the glass bottle incident (the helpful front-desk response: “Oh, your neighbors are checking out today. I’ll send someone to clean up the glass”), and tried to get online. After 15 minutes of nothing, I called the front desk. After 45 minutes of nothing, I’d had enough. I reserved a room at another hotel, packed my bags, and checked out, simply leaving my keys on the counter as the clerk called after me “You won’t get a refund, you know.” (The last straw was when he suggested we could try out the Internet in different rooms. Like I would want to drag my suitcase up and down the stairs some more?)

Fortunately I had directions to my new hotel – which was as wonderful as the old one was dreadful – but unfortunately I did not have a very good map of Pittsburgh, and if you know anything about Picksburgh, as the natives call it, it’s that there is no grid, and the streets tend to go north for a while, then east, then change into something else…I almost got lost on the way to Maija’s recital, but then all of a sudden, the building appeared. Her dad and stepmom were setting up the reception for afterwards, and I joined in. The recital itself was magical. I am enormously privileged to have two children who are musicians, and the thrill of seeing them onstage creating beauty is something I never take for granted. When did that little girl who didn’t like practicing become this poised, competent, sensitive violist?

We had several meals together with her boyfriend, dad and stepmom, and then everyone left except me. I got two days with Maija that felt like one long slumber party. She moved into my hotel (which was too luxurious for just one person) and we took full advantage of its comforts. We had a manicure and pedicure, went out for Mexican food one night, ordered Chinese food to go on the other, and watched movies and TV. We slept in, she played hooky from school on my last morning there, and I helped her do some research for a paper on Black American music. I went with her to a baseball game in the downtown stadium and got sunburned, and I went to another student recital, this time Baroque music with period instruments. I shopped in a supermarket where I was one of the few white customers, and I got lost more times than I can tell. But I got to know Pittsburgh a little bit, and I got to spend precious time with my daughter.

So travel: it’s a double-edged sword. It’s a necessity, now that I’m living so far from my family members and from just about everything else, including my cabin. But the rewards make up for it. Maybe someday I’ll lose my fear of flying completely so I can actually work and fly at the same time. For now I’m content to not feel terrified – though I still kiss the plane.