Airborne

With apologies to Jason Reitman, "up in the air" is a metaphor I really need right now. For some of the same the reasons it worked so well in his movie.

I have flown for long stretches over the last six weeks. And flying - as a layman with absolutely no understanding of aeronautical engineering - requires a leap of faith for me. I think "how do it do this?" Relying, as I am, on a giant tin can to hurtle me above the earth at unfathomable speeds. Trusting, as I do, that it's ok to have the clouds under me, that the hard earth below will receive me gently - delivered by metal wings, guided by a man in a uniform, festooned with medals, about whom I know nothing.

Up in the air. When you are between destinations. When you rely on fate or luck or planning - or the convergence of all these and timing - to get you from where you are to where you will be. When the where you will be is indeterminate, or the path to it is unclear.

I trusted the planes, and I was delivered - to a job that ended, to a past career that warranted re-visiting. To home again, twice.

The plane landed and I am home, but I am still up there - a little ungrounded.

I don't know what comes next.

I closed a door, definitively. Four weeks later, I am returning home to job hunt. And learned, in the Salt Lake City Airport during the 45-minute layover, that my thumb drive that included my last invoice to that other job was destroyed. That all my writing samples from that other job were also irrevocably corrupted.

Six weeks elsewhere, and returning to motherhood and reality, I learned that the spreadsheet that defined how I am to distribute 55 boxes of Girl Scout cookies is also quite gone. And I have no idea what it said, because I was between places when I created it.

In the Salt Lake airport, I didn't quite cry. But tears sprung to my eyes and I talked myself down. Questioning, at once, my organizational skills both maternal and professional, I swiped my eyes, swallowed the growing lump, and embarked the plane.

I settled in, somehow, next to a race car driver. In his sixties, on his way to Jackson, Mississippi to race a car.

I have never talked with someone before, on a plane.

For five hours, the charming Brit and I looked at our separate lives through common interests, common sensibilities. David (his name, learned just before wheels touched down) is a farmer mechanic, as was my grandfather. A grower of things, a builder of race cars, a flyer of planes, a sailer of boats. He is a father, a grandfather. He is stationary, on his island - and he is the most mobile of mobiles - building and racing cars - having returned to this version of himself at 60 after a 30-year hiatus.

He told a story, my flight mate. Of a fisherman.

The fisherman is casting his line when he is approached by a banker.

"Why not hire some laborers to fish for you? You get a cut of what they bring in. The more you hire, the more you collect. Eventually, you won't have to do any of the work. They will do it for you. Money will roll in. You can retire. "

"But what would I do?," replied the fisherman, curious.

"Well, then you would have all the time in the world to spend at the beach. Fishing," replied the businessman.

"Ah. And how is that different from what I do... now..?"

For now, I will enjoy a little inflicted-upon-me leisure time. I will count my ducks, go on Spring Break, and enjoy my children without a corporate-mandated to do list hanging in the wings. I will look for work - and I will try to remember these past weeks - filled with some of what I love and some of what I loathe, some of what fits, and some of what doesn't. I will try to know something of what I want before I begin the chase.

I may even fish.

Tides

Seaglass. Shells. Bleach-white coral branches. Treasures under your feet, gifts for dropping by.

In far-off rural Connecticut, Mom has thousands of these, sorted according to size and shape and color. Mine are in jars, in lamps, in bottles. I have a table scattered with sea-worn conchs on my back deck. I can't sit down without handling one.

I pick through shells within reach. Wonder what beach, where. Sometimes I know - the ones on the plate, by my sink in my bathroom are from Thailand, and Scotland. Reminders that I have traveled, that I will travel.

The tides ebb and flow and the bigness reassures. The view changes by sea, by vantage point, and by season. Sometimes silver, gray, black, and every shade of blue and green.

Those tides transform the sharp, dangerous, glinting bits of broken. The rougher the tides, the sooner the patient work is done. Tumbling across the ocean floor, glass shards are blunted and matted. Bright, flashing threatening - they become soft. Harder to see. Jewel-like and gentle.

The ocean is the only place that soothes my sharper edges, too. 'Place' is so general that I am not entirely discouraged. This 'place' that spans the periphery. A 'there' that can be hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of miles away.

For shorter, luckier spans, it is the distance of a bike ride, or a window.

I lived near the beach as kid - from 11 to 19. I snorkeled and was mesmerized at the bright, busy world out of view. Each date ended with a walk on the beach, at my insistence. My nervous chatter would cease, and I could affect stillness.

Mom bought time shares, and almost all time was spent on beach vacations. Different beaches, different weeks. An investment that made sense - that bought us ocean views, salt, sea glass, shells.

Back home, I kept a towel in my trunk. I would sometimes go after school, after band, and watch the sun set, alone - when I did so little alone by choice back then. Dateless nights, Tica and I would get ice cream and walk - and chat, and sit.

As an adult, we lived as a family, for four years, a few miles from the beach, a few years back. I could raise my head and smell salt on the air. I could breathe it, thick, on hot days. Closer in, I could taste it on my tongue, on my skin. I could brush the sand out of toddlers' hair. Slather sun protection onto fat little legs. Dig holes, bury limbs, watch kite surfers, envy sandpipers their quick feet.

With Jim and Lisa, we rode tentatively or enthusiastically on the back of the waverunner - exploring further. Visiting sea turtles and dolphins. Learning, intimately, the limits of the waves.

My pinkest, blondest, busiest baby was born a few miles from the ocean. His arrival meant tents and layers and lotions and pack-n-plays. Unwieldy things that interrupted my fandango notion of what beach visits were "supposed" to be.

We hauled stuff, set up camp, chased and watched, slathered and brushed off. Baby powder removes sand from chubby thighs, and even the most stubborn baby only eats a full handful of sand once or twice. We would move him under the umbrella, under the umbrella, under the umbrella - hand him trucks and shovels and grovel for him to STAY under the umbrella. Stillness was not a part.

We went on dates, some, the Big One and I. And like their precursors years before, those dates ended looking at the ocean. We would sit in commandeered lounge chairs, or I would lean against his sturdy, anchored frame. The top of the sand still warm from the day, toes digging to cooler layers. We would solve things. Or forget there were things to solve.

Feeling shardy of late. I could use some softening - some wave-tumbles, a dose of salt, some sand for my edges.