I wrote something on the airplane

I struggle with this idea of being "in-transit." It is easier in the car, staring down at the white lines and the green mile markers or even on a ship, which despite its rocking it still feels firmly anchored to something.
But airplane travel. This could be equated with limbo. The plane takes off from the runway (I still don't understand how and will not understand how) and it is lifted into nowhere. On the flight from Rome to Jersey they had diagrams showing the position of the plane in the sky, but the scale of the plane was about one eighth of the Atlantic Ocean, rendering those images unbelievable. A dot might be more appropriate, but a dot small enough to portray the airplane over the world would not be visible on the screen.
Halfway through the ten hour flight I began to question the reality of flying. How did I know that the airplane, the size of one eighth of the ocean, was actually flying midway trhough the Atlantic between Canada and Ireland? I had no window, this added to the perception of an illusion, but even when windows existed I considered the possibility that the things seen out of them were only images on a television screen. I felt about flying the way some people thought about landing on the moon; that it was far too fantastic to be real.
I was nowhere for approximately thirteen hours that day. I might as well have stayed where I was in Florence and sat in my room for those hours. I would've gotten equally as much accomplished and at the end of the day I could've stepped out of my room and beam-me-up-Scotty style been in St. Paul.
Flying would be more real if airplanes didn't have roofs. I have this vague suspicion we would all be sucked out and memories of a movie I watched long ago with my mother where half an airplane had lost it's top and everyone was screaming. My mother said this was the smoking half of the airplane. But still, it would be like driving a car with the windos open in an area relatively void of oxygen. I should be sick: I am moving hundreds of miles per hour and can't feel it.
The Rome airport is a good reflection of Italy itself. The train was alright, besides just missing the one which would have delivered us to the airport at the recommended two hours ahead of time. We arrived at the airport to find we had to take a bus to get to the correct terminal and of course we had just missed that one too. While on the bus I began to blame the entireity of Italian culture for our tardiness and decided they probably wouldn't let us check in at that point. However, timeliness is not an Italian habit and much of the plane seem to be in the check-in like with us. We got to the counter and they announced that our flight had been booked with their airline by a different airline. We went over to the counter for the other airline with the assistance of an old Italian woman who spoke to us in half Italian and half English (at that point I was so worrried I couldn't understand either- I just nodded). She handed us an abundance of tickets- six to be exact - and we got through security, rode up and down a mulitude of escalators only to be confronted by another bus, which took us to yet another building. Once at that building we rode up and down several more escalators before reaching our gate and then rode down one more escalator to board. I must've been wearing my worried wrinkled face; everyone kept calling me "sweetie."

When I was nowhere I forgot about my hatred for Italy and started to complain about the lack of Italian written on things on the airplane- Spanish and English written instead. It's easier to love everything that's somewhere and exlusively hate the airplane when you are nowhere. The noise of airplanes makes me fall asleep, just like the noise of overhead projectors. My neck, which has been equated to that of a giraffe, addes to this, finding it no trouble to lean over and rest on my shoulder while I slumber. It hurts when I wake up, but I simply shift it to the other shoulder. I didn't dream on the flight from Rome. I tried not to think about Florence; it was already giving me culture shock on the airplane.

Everyone has a special relationship with their home airport. The first time I ever picked my dad up from a business trip he remarked that it was a sign that I was getting old. After 9/11 the baggage claim is the meeting place. I have yet to see the baggage claim in movies: airport rules don't apply in nonreality. There is very little that is romantic about baggage turning in circles. i imagine running through the airport to see my dad and my brother. I will not do this. The way I imagine them greeting me is accurate though. My dad's smile, somewhat like mine: naive and excited. My brotjher will be sassy. He will lecture me about my terrible time int he Rome airport. Tell me my legs will be cold because I have no clean leggings and it is warm in Rome. We willb e happy, in the way I was never able to be with my family untilI started leaving.

The woman next to me is reading a book about riding hourses. I looked over her shoulder a couple of times in order to learn that, "If you think your horse will freak out it will." Our flight is small. The boy across and up one from me is doing high school homework. He is making of those carts with all the connecting circles. The solo flight attendent sounds like a woman. I stared at him for a long time trying to decide if he once was, but the male-pattern baling gives his masculinity away. He sits in a sit that faces the entire airplane cabin. He doesn't looked at me. I imagine that other peopel are looking at him as well.
The clouds from New Jersey to Minnesota look like ice. A giant lake with snow drifts on it, the type one can find in February and March in Minnesota. Everytime I leave home I decide that no one understands the concept of lakes like Minnesotans., something integral to live in simple ways. I always appreciate stationary water when I am away from it.
How strange. I went up into nowhere and will come down at the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport, where it is fifty degrees colder and everyone is pale and many of them are fat. We need eduction on airplesn, an instructional video that reminds us where we are goign and where we came from. Perhaps statistics, such as, Minnesotia: land of 10,000 lakes with a capital city of St. Paul. It has the Mall of America and lots of snow. Some parts have farms, others are heavily wooded. Some areas used to have prairies, but I suspect this is where the farms are now. There are a lot od cows, which makes for good milk. Tasha Coryell grew up here. She has a strange tendency to idealize it when she is gone.