Flying, Fifteen and Karaoke

May 3rd, 2010

Let’s be clear. As a teenager (and before) I misbehaved. If it was bad for you, dangerous, risky or death defying? I did it. And like most every kid, it never occurred to me that I was actually taking risks with my life. I was fearless, brave, bold.

Until the risk came looking for me, wrapped its nastiness around me and almost pulled me under.

One night when I was 15…

I mixed a few too many chemicals and fell off a ledge – or that’s what it felt like. All I remember is the sensation of floating away and then falling. Down a dark, terrifying, endless tunnel. And the sound of my own screams.

Of course, my friends didn’t call an ambulance (or my parents) – they shook me out of it and took me outside. And as we sat on the front steps (smoking ‘restorative’ cigarettes), and I tried to find the ground under my body, I heard a plane flying over head. Because I was in a panicked state, my hearing was simultaneously excruciatingly exact and far, far away – as if being filtered through an echo chamber.

Somehow, the sound of that plane, the mention of any other plane and flying in general glued themselves to the pungent realizations that crept into my core that night, took up residence and refused to leave. That, in this life: I had no control and I would die.

Those are the kinds of revelations you hope to stave off until your 20′s. At least. Right? But there they were. And in my mind they were inextricably linked to everything airplane.

Lockdown

My knee-jerk response to ‘the incident’ was to regain control. In other words, I cleaned my shit up right quick. I literally erased as much risk from my life as possible – my two main targets were drugs & alcohol and flying. Wait – I should also tell you that I developed a beautiful little case of OCD and a delightful eating disorder or two in my attempt to control everything around me. So, I think we can all agree that this ‘controlling everything’ was not the best plan.

It shut down my life.

And I held on to it for quite some time. Somewhere deep down inside, I had made a deal with myself: if you hold everything in – as tightly as possible, if you don’t take any chances, if you stay so afraid to die that you don’t let yourself live – then you’ll be okay.

I know! I’m Brilliant!!!

I wonder to this day, what in god’s name my definition of ‘okay’ was.

Time passed and I grew out of much of this.

Life in general, yoga, running every morning, good friends.
Then, motherhood, writing, running my business.
And of course, a basic, on-going and un-ignorable drive to succeed and thrive.

They all helped, immeasurably. I was practically ‘normal’ again. But there was still this one little hanger-onner. You see, I took all of that angst and I shoved it somewhere that it wouldn’t really affect my daily life.

I put it all on a plane.

I flew a couple of times as a teenager after ‘the incident’ – and it was horrible – and I only did it because I, occasionally allowed myself to be forced to do things my parents told me I had to do. But whenever humanly possibly, I would drive back and forth from college (in Vermont) to home (in St. Louis), and then I would do the same from Boston, where I spent my 20′s. Mostly, I just didn’t go home. Mostly, I didn’t go anywhere.

I finally flew in November, 2000 (because I had two midwest weddings in the span of two weeks and I just couldn’t do the drive twice) – and I was thinking I might be okay, that I could do this flying thing again – even though I was terrified and hated it. And then 9/11 happened – and I climbed back into my ‘bad things happen when planes are added to the mix’ hole and mantra.

I didn’t fly again until last fall, nine years later.

Last fall is when I decided (in general) that if I was going to go down, at least I’d go down living. So I flew. Twice. And I was okay. As in really okay. It was practically enjoyable, this flying thing. (I even met a cute banker on the plane).

This weekend, I flew again.

It was easy. I liked it. (Except for the part where I felt nauseous from the turbulence, the part where I was going to use the barf bag for my orange peels and found someone’s chewed gum in it, and the part where I accidentally touched something wet and gross in the soup can lavatory.) This airplane took me to an amazing place, conference and community of people.

What it means to fly.

For me, it means that I’m not so scared anymore – or more importantly, that when I do get scared, I’m not going to let it stop me. It means that I’m living again. Flying, after all, was the last thing I was holding on to…

Underneath it all, that 15-year old self (the one that was alive before 10:30ish pm on October 22, 1988) has been waiting. She’s been pissed that her life was hijacked, and she’s been waiting to get her chance again.

Singing outloud

One of the millions of brilliant things I heard at SOBCon this weekend was this: If the only reason you aren’t doing something is that you’re scared, you absolutely have to do it.* It’s practically a neon sign flashing, “GO HERE! DO THIS! NOW!”

On Saturday night, in Chicago, I was taken to a karaoke (total dive) bar – and told that I would be singing, so I might as well pick a song. At that point, something happened to my body. “I am so not doing that!” – is what it sounded like. I was fascinated by my quick response, the lightening quick embodiment of my “NO!!!!” shield. So I asked myself why I was saying no. I looked and looked and looked and looked some more (hopin’ and prayin’ to find something, anything) – but there was only fear, as far as my internal eye could see.

The only reason I didn’t want to sing was that I was scared. I saw that truth, kicked it to the curb and sang – ridiculously, badly and with gusto. It was a duet – just me and my 15-year old self. And she was really loud.

************************

*Steve Farber said this. He is amazing and inspiring and delightfully humorous. Check him out and buy his books. I’m going to.

Image credit: carbonated

Filed under How To, Myth or Reality, Writing | Tags: flying, life, planes, risks, running, Writing | Comments (15)

What to do when it just won’t fit.

February 3rd, 2010

I haven’t been sleeping well. Even when I appear to sleep well (ie. I go to sleep at 10 and wake up at 6), I open my eyes and feel like I’ve been fighting a war all night. I’d say 99% of the time, I wake up drenched in a cold sweat. Last night at some point I had that horrible feeling like you’re plummeting to the ground that jerks you awake and freaks the shit out of you.

And then, there are the dreams. My dreams are long, intricate, heavily detailed and almost always remembered in the morning with startling focus. Also, many of these night visions are recurring. Not that I’m having the same exact dream over and over, but I’ve had three themes that have attached themselves to my subconscious for the last 3 decades.

1. Flying. I’m not a bird or anything, these dreams are usually more about airplane travel. Usually, I’m preparing for a trip, running around an airport, on an airplane that either looks like an actual plane or sometimes a big bus. These dreams are almost always stressful, dare I say frightening, chaotic and downright eerie.

2. Swimming. I’ve always been a swimmer, I’ve always loved it. These dreams involve me in water of all kinds – rough and calm, pools, rivers and oceans. In general, the stories are soothing, interesting, expansive. They are so real, these water dreams. I can feel the water, I can feel my body in the water.

[Yes, I know. Flying and water dreams are incredibly cliche. And I'm flogging my subconscious for being so mundane. But, don't close this window yet, my 3rd theme is just plain odd.]

3. Contacts. I started wearing glasses in the 4th grade and contacts in the 6th. Without either of these aids in real life, I am fully inoperable. And my recurring dream about my contacts is that I’m trying to put one of the lenses in my eye and it’s too big. Instead of being the size of a dime, it’s the size of a quarter or a half-dollar or the lid of a Campbell’s soup can. And I’m trying so hard to get it in my eye, but I can’t.

Let’s psycho-analyze, shall we:

The flying/travel dreams are about fear of change and taking risks and moving forward. Even if I rush headily into change and transformation in my waking hours, I deal with the stress of it all when I sleep.

The swimming dreams are about being held, being safe. There’s just no way around that analysis, I can feel it in my bones.

The contacts dreams? I think it’s about vision. I think it addresses this deeply held belief that we need something to help us see, something to enable our vision, that we need ‘other’ to find fruition, success, sight. And in my dream, this crutch is useless. I can’t make it fit. I can’t make it help me. In the, I’m guessing, 50 dreams I’ve had about my contacts thus far, the story ends with me trying to get this big, sloppy, plastic saucer in my eye. I never get beyond that point.

I wrote this post because I’m tired and I want to sleep peacefully. And because, good or bad, every night or every other month, these dreams haunt me a bit. And because when I write, I get to look at the struggle from a different side – not all wild in my head, but down here – civilized – on the ‘paper’. I find order and sense and, most often, a path out of the maze. I think writing helps with things like this. It takes the floaty, overwhelming stress and pins it to the paper. Like a butterfly under glass.

So, maybe it’ll be tonight. Maybe tonight I’ll sleep really well. And when the contacts don’t fit, I’ll defiantly toss them aside, look up and realize that I can see regardless, that I can actually see better. And then, maybe, I’ll walk into an orderly airport, buy a cheap ticket and fly somewhere warm. I’ll go straight to the beach…and swim in the sweet embrace of the blue ocean until morning.

Image credit: Jason W. Stanley