Flight

Many years ago I boarded a plane heading for Chicago O’hare airport then to Orange County California.  There wasn’t much thought to flying though I never had been on an airplane previously.  My ex wife helped me to pack my luggage and tied a red ribbon around the handle to provide a noticeable marker to easily identify it in between flights.  We were arguing about nonsensical obstinacies creating standoffishness between us.  A snowstorm was expected the week that I was supposed to leave.  It was a business trip I was excited for the new career prospect.  My wife was excited as well but she held on to a competitive bitterness that I didn’t understand.  She dropped me off at the airport with a measure of melancholy that came to her as I was ready to board my flight.  I felt the weight of her emotion.  To tell you the truth I was in ketosis because I was full of sweaty anxiety and besides coffee I didn’t eat a thing. The flight began and I was surprised with how flimsy the plane seemed.  On a different parallel it reminded me of my old Eurosport Chevrolet after I had gotten into a car accident and used a roll of book tape to make a new window.  There was a slight draft in the plane along with mid-flight turbulence.  The constant hum of wind could be heard I’m not sure if it something to do with cabin pressure or if it was just the way smaller size planes sound flying through storms.  Some of the other people on the plane seemed jittered the captain of the plane apologized for the turbulence.  I had nothing to compare it to and didn’t think much of the flight.

Where there was snow on the ground back at home the temperature was temperate and I noticed considerable amount of homes, trees, and then concrete and brick buildings.  I had heard that Chicago was a pretty city to visit.  History was a subject in school that I took interest in.  I’m a meat cutter by trade any one from my kind of background knows that Chicago was once a center for that industry.  There was vigor to being involved with movement and the excitement of something that is greater than any one individual.  Compared to the airport that I left from Chicago O’Hare airport was vast.  I had some time to spare in between flights needing something to eat.  First I went to the bathroom carrying a leather bound book binder with study material for training.  I didn’t want the bulkiness of lugging around luggage deciding to trust baggage handling to safely deliver my belongings.  For the reason of sanitation I was glad that I had an empty stomach going to the bathroom in one of the stalls I accidentally dropped the leather bound case on the ground quickly picking it up washing my hands making my way to the food court.  I decided to eat Chinese food grabbing a pair of chop sticks then began to eat.  For some reason I smelled something distinct that resembled feces.  I couldn’t place the origin of it then began to look.  When I had dropped my leather bookbinder it fell on the ground apparently where someone had missed the toilet bowl.  It was my luck making sure that I would never forget my first time on a plane.  The fact of having someone else’s fecal matter on my hands and my book binder turned my stomach.  To this day I can’t imagine a more disturbing occurrence. I had to go and wash the leather bookcase and the bits of fecal matter on my hands. What I did decide to do was share the story with my brother and wife.  While my wife was mortified my brother was ecstatic promising to tell as many people that he could.  For that reason I had to laugh. 

Several hours later I boarded the connecting flight to California.  It was my first time crossing the states in a plane.  Luckily I was able to be seated at a window.  There was someone sitting on the side of me that was a rough sort.  He seemed dirty, drinking a lot of hard liquor during the flight then he fell asleep and started to drool excessively it seemed unreal.  The most remarkable part of flying with a window seat was noticing the difference in geography with the nighttime lights.  I never felt that minute in comparison to the greatness of humanity. Traveling on the road is different than flying.  I’ll tell you the truth I like driving because I’m able to appreciate the scenery a little more closely but if I were writing a story with trying to have a god like perspective the only experiences that could top that are military planes and space flight.  Seeing that I was traveling to enter multi week sales training I wasn’t looking to be a god.  I was nervous studying continuously on the plane trying to master the material that I would later be rigorously tested in a class of other territory managers and higher ups would also be trained.  I was inexperienced in comparison to most of the others in the training class.  It was my goal to compensate my career experience with memorizing as much of the study material including the company processes.  The second flight was smooth and continuous the stewardess on the plane handed out free soda and the person on the side of me gave me theirs.  From there on in the flight was seamless it could have been that I got into study mode.  When the plane descended there was the inertia of the tilting of the wings on the plane and the spectacular view of the mountainous region of Southern California.  Years have passed with a lot of things happening in between.  In retrospect there’s not much of a comparison between myself professionally since I always move forward and I don’t regret upward mobility.  There’s a level of professionalism that I feel that I have reached including personal tact and skill that I didn’t posses at that moment. Since I’m writing about flying I’ll end with this.  I like the experience of flying, the vibrant energy that accompanies the hugeness of a busy airport.  The godlike view of the magnificent creations that remind me of how minute any one person is putting my anxieties into perspective.  The quick change in environment that provides something completely new with a change of energy that I’ve never had the change to experience otherwise.  Are there improvements with the woulda, coulda, shoulda’s of life lingering? “The best at everything” is a joke that an elder gentleman would say when he was asked what he was. That’s the kind of idealism that I aspire to become.  If were a better writer perhaps I would have sold more advertising when I was an AE and maybe I would profit from my current writing.  This particular position that where I was flying to a training class was the only job that I was ever fired from.  Hard work was always something that I prided myself in.  The business world is more complex in different areas of expertise with hard work not being the only path to success along with more paths to failure.  It lead me to believe that the woulda, coulda, shoulda’s of life motivate me to want something greater for myself.