Articulated

Still working on the recreation of my lost post. Reminds me a Garrison Keillor piece I read years ago in the New Yorker about a lost manuscript. The more he searched for it, the greater it became ... in his mind. Now that I've lost the 1000+ words I wrote about my New Year's Eve-mare, the more precious that story has become to me.

Here is an article that I loved. What would I do without nytimes.com? Seriously? What would I do? Would I spend time organizing my photo albums, make homemade bread, dust more? Build furniture? (I don't know how to build furniture.) I would probably gets lots done, but might lose whatever depth I can claim.

This piece - "The Cost of High Anxiety About Flying" - resonated with me, of course. When we flew home from Minnesota to Texas earlier this week, my fear level was pretty low, but my motion sickness level was quite high. I got really sick on the plane, and threw up four times. TMI, I know. You know what's crazy. I felt so ill the entire time that I just turned my kids loose on their electronic devices (well, once we reached cruising altitude, that is). I was in the aisle seat, Annie was in the middle and Graham was at the window. Because Annie had a sweater over her head, she couldn't see me, and neither could Graham. Neither child realized I was drooling and sweating with illness. It was horrible, yes, but at least I was able to keep my eyes shut and rest my cheeks on the medium-cool tray table surface. 

Good news: Delta now serves Fresca!

I like what writer Liesl Schillinger says about flying in her lede paragraph:
"Everyone knows that flying in a plane is potentially dangerous — just as everyone knows that climbing Mount Everest is dangerous. What goes up must come down; and if you put yourself at a great height, you put yourself at risk of falling, though the odds of perishing in a plane crash are one in ten million, whereas for every ten Everestclimbers who reach the peak, one dies ... a far less comfortable margin."

And then in the next paragraph, she continues:
"Regina Spektor wove this thought into her album, “Far” last June, in the song “Laughing With,” which goes, “No one laughs at God when their airplane starts to uncontrollably shake.” It’s the 21st century, but that doesn’t keep flying from remaining, on one level, an act of faith."

I'm no longer having panic attacks, but flying is still an act of faith for me, though faith in what, I'm not sure? My religious faith brings some calm, but not because I believe my life will be spared simply because I pray it such. (That's a topic for another blog post.)