It was a small plane for a short flight. A puddle jumper between Washington DC and Boston. I had my turquoise computer bag slung over my shoulder. I pulled my matching rolling bag down the slender aisle where it fit like a wrong jigsaw puzzle piece, almost but not quite. Every few feet it caught a seat edge or an errant shin. I looked ahead, and then behind, in an unending sequence until I reached row 10, careful not to delay or annoy other passengers. Seat 10D was my personal space in this community of travellers, all of us occupying an area narrower than a Pullman bus. With some difficulty, I lifted my rolling bag into the cabinet above my row. I arranged it so the cover would latch and gave it two thrusts until I heard the security lock click. Next, I pretzeled myself into 10D for the 2-hour flight. I’m only 5’1” and 135 pounds. I fit adequately with no room to spare.
Flying has been a personal love since my first take-off 58 years ago when I headed to college from Minnesota, a white Jewish 17-year-old who danced to Petula Clark in her living room and curled up in a wingback chair with her New Republic subscription, my own monthly subscription I aspired to understand. On that first flight, as the Northwest Airline’s wheels retracted, I felt the delicious sensation of groundlessness. I inhaled deeply and relaxed for the first time since perhaps age 10. As an adolescent, growing up in the anti-war, anti-military industrial complex era, I had been panting at the exit sign, anticipating release from what I perceived as my family’s excessive judgment of my faltering attempts at adulthood.
I would have been wearing tight-fitting blue jeans, with homemade patches on knees, thighs, and butt, a trim t-shirt, and high heels, probably robin egg blue with stacked heels. Not stilettos. My hair was still dark brown, parted imperfectly in the middle, and long enough to reach my mid-back. I might have also worn a purple felt hat and a coral-colored crocheted shawl. There might have been small bells hanging from my waistband. I emitted the fragrance of Patchouli oil.
Now at the age of 75 and a seasoned traveler to numerous nations in various aircraft, I noted the shrinkage of the cabin, and the nonchalance, dare I say indifference, of the flight attendants. As we buckled up for take-off, the usual pre-takeoff hush overtook the plane. But there was still one lone passenger unaccounted for. The only vacant seat was next to me.
As the doors closed and the flight attendant pushed the button to begin the pre-recorded pre-flight video, a tall young man ambled down the aisle. His hair was in disorganized cornrows, an inconsistent pattern of facial hair dotted his face, and he wore loose fitting jeans and a t-shirt depicting a rapper over his tattooed arms. He held sneakers in one hand and a large black duffel bag in the other. Black earphones hung on his neck. He thrust his sneakers, neon orange with slim black stripes, size ginormous, onto his seat. Then he changed his mind and threw them under the forward-facing seat in front of his. Next, he pondered where to fit his duffel bag. It was larger than allowed. He tried it under the seat. To add his duffel to the-under-the-seat-in-front-of-you configuration would have rendered it mission impossible. The space too small; the bag, the young man, the shoes, all too large. The orange sneakers alone claimed all his storage real estate.
He looked at me, a youthful pleading in his eyes.
“What do I do?” he said.
I fairly yelled at him, as though addressing one of my children or grandchildren and sounding like the Jewish Bubbe I have become. When it comes to young people and the mysteries of the grownup world, any aged person will do in a pinch. I was his aged person now, and I was happy for it. Even though we hadn’t met until that moment I was flattered to be included in his problem-solving network. I flourished my left hand in the direction of the aisle, indicating he best hurry it up.
“Put it above. Find an overhead space,” I said.
He promptly cruised the aisle in search of an unoccupied overhead cabinet. There were none large enough. Finally, a flight attendant offered to check the bag. This task required a few more passes by our seats, and several more personnel became involved in his case.
He returned to his seat as we were taxiing. He stretched out to his full frame and stuffed his long legs under the seat in front.
He seemed disinclined for conversation although I would have liked to converse. I imagined him a college student on one of his first flights as I had been at his age. I decided he had bought his new orange sneakers while on break, or maybe his mom had generously bought them for him. He had decided they were too precious to be allowed in the duffel bag, and I imagined he was grateful for this decision because they remained safely with him for the duration.
He scrolled on his phone, made a few hasty pecks at the screen, asked if he might take down the armrest between us, relaxed, and closed his eyes. He didn’t stir until the flight landed.
I didn’t personalize his disinterest in conversation but interpreted it as an artifact of his generation. Whereas on my early flights I would have immediately started an intense sharing with my seatmate, sometimes culminating in gifting a paperback to them after telling them of my latest boyfriend crisis. Now social media and entertainment offer distraction from new friends, even if you’ve bonded around a baggage crisis.
As we taxied to the gate, I reached down to retrieve my computer bag which had become entangled on my foot. I was trapped in its straps, not able to lean forward enough to disengage.
“I’ve got you,” he said as he deftly pulled it out.
When the plane parked, he leaped out of his seat and stood in the aisle face to face with the overhead cabinet where I had stored my rolling suitcase. He opened the compartment and looked back at me. “Do you have another bag?” he said.
Without waiting for an answer, he retrieved my turquoise suitcase and handed it over to me.
“Thank you,” I said.
He smiled, shrugged, and lumbered down the aisle to baggage.
Later, as I passed out of the terminal, I had to walk near the baggage claim. I had the impulse to seek him out at the carousel and properly thank him. But what would I have said? I thought of many possibilities, but none that would have touched the unspoken kinship that had existed between us for a few moments in the air.
Elizabeth Rose’s essays have appeared in Anti-Heroin Chic, the Boston Globe, New Mexico Review, The Worcester Journal and Escape, a collection of memoir pieces edited by The Pathfinders Collective. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in literary magazines Verdad and BarBar. She received her MFA in Creative Non-Fiction in 2019 from Lesley University. In 2020 she authored a chapter in Today's Wonder Women: Everyday Superheroes Who Are Changing the World, by Asha Dahya. She has a psychotherapy practice and organizes the Rubbish to Runway in Massachusetts where she lives.
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