on turbulence

we are all flying high

It began at some point in my twenties, but I can no longer handle airplane turbulence very well. As a younger man, perhaps even a child, I almost revelled in the degree to which it didn’t bother me. My neat calculus was that if the stewards were unbothered, then I should be too. What is a layman to do but follow authority?

There is a scene in Fight Club which played some role in my nascent fears. My memory is often poor, but to this day, the image of that aircraft splitting open mid-flight, the quiet, overwhelming cosmos exposed to the screaming people once housed in a steel magic trick - still lingers in my mind.

The plane I am writing this on shakes unremarkably. The ascent was irregular but nothing to call home about. As the plane rose through waves of pressure and other phenomena I will never care to look up, the turbulence began. As is now habit, I prayed fervently during take-off. For our safety, for my sweet daughters mere minutes the other side of this flight, for a smooth journey. The South Indian woman to my left looked at me in a way that looked bewildered as I spoke to God on her behalf in a voice she couldn’t hear. As is now habit, I looked around - as the sound of something in this beast we were riding seemed to be intensifying to some horrible crescendo. My eyes began to close and the muscles in my face tightened. Prayers had resumed. I declared in a whisper that there was no god but God. I looked around and embarrassingly found no-one else disturbed, some utterly unmoved by this relatively low-level turbulence. At its most intense, I was holding the seat in front of me, inadvertently trapping a blonde woman’s hair between my left index finger and her headrest, pulling away as I felt it pull. At that moment the woman to my left turned to me and gave a smile that showed a small discomfort at the sudden movements of the plane - a small discomfort likely devoured by my outsized fear.

I would not say I am afraid of flying. Not just to save some masculine face - I am still enamoured with the process; the pockets of time to read and write, the glamour of airports, the novel feeling that one is going to fly soon. I still feel most gangster walking from the gate to the plane, my feet sharing airfield tarmac with all these jets and reminded how new to the human story all this is. Even the walk up those metal stairs to a low-cost airline feels more special than it is. Maybe it is my small-town roots, but the airfield feels like that big other world has found you at last.

Being close to an eventful death has only been strange to a very small portion of humanity for a very small portion of time. As soon as the plane settles and the hum of the engine and the wings and the stale air conditioning units returns to a familiar baritone, all is well again; life is to be lived until ever-older age grips you, surrounded by loving grandchildren, and hundreds of reasons to be thankful. The truth, of course as we are reminded regularly, is that you just never know when it could happen. We live in the numbing embrace of numbers that we’re told only speak truth. That flying is the safest form of travel - so much so that when the trained expert is telling you how to secure your oxygen mask before you secure your child’s, you drift. I ain’t reading all that. How many nations fell by turning their hearts away from Prophets?

I know I am more likely to die by a road accident in London. I know this growing fear is not rooted in calm probabilities, and that the stewards are as stoic as they were in my younger years. This is true, but I am aware of death more intimately than I once was. I have a wife and delicate children now. One of them cried yesterday because her coughs were painful and through tears she remembered I didn’t give her the sweet treat I promised her. My heart broke for this small turbulence.