30,000 Tears Above Sea Level
This is a love letter to all the people who cry on planes.
This is for all the people who don’t use the in-flight wifi, who use the quiet hours to meditate or read or catch up on journaling. This is for the people who see the shapes of their ideas in the clouds, who find their clarity in the impenetrable black windows of late night flights. This is for the people whose every emotion is magnified with every mile they ascend from the ground, carried on metal chariots filled with each passenger’s most vital possessions and their hopes for a better tomorrow.
There is something beautiful about flying, isn’t there?
Grass and asphalt fall away, replaced by large swatches of color like a Pantone color sample come to life, Irish hedges blend into Channel cliffs, grassland yellows freeze into icy greys, Chihuahuan desert vistas swell up into prickly Rocky Mountains. Distance from our lives gives us a literal birds’ eye view, allowing us to see our problems as our gods must (and our gods as our problems must).
No one gets on a plane without hoping for something better at the end, right? Whether it’s something small like a good business meeting or something grim like closure at a funeral or something risky like a lover and a new life, something we hope for awaits each traveler at the next airport, and our very ability to travel by air is defined by our ability to hope. Our determination to brave hours speeding 30,000 feet above the ground is human hopefulness at its most potent; If hope could power the world our planes full of people crossing oceans could (would!) sustain us for generations.
I doubt I’m the only writer who finds themselves mid-flight and the words flowing like someone else is whispering into my ear. As we’re conducted through the air we become a conduit, closer to the muses who humble us and make us feel alive. If flying is hope, then writing is faith.
Every time I’m on a plane, I write a love letter. It’s a weird habit that I’ve never told anyone about until right now, but 2017 is going to be a year for being vulnerable, for quietly opening our chests and showing everyone else our beating and bloody hearts. So: Every time I get on a plane I write a love letter. The words spill out from my tears and from my fingers, demanding a emotional release I can normally put a dam in front of when both of my feet are on the ground. Most of them never get sent, but today I’m going to send this one because it’s time to celebrate the balanced ones — the ones who cry on planes then go on to their regular life, fighting their battles with the conviction only hope gives them.
Because I’m not one of those people. I cry on planes but I lose hope easily, feel dejected, hide my heart behind eleven protective layers of solitude, nonchalance, and ice.
We don’t need more people like me. Nor do we need trigger happy people determined to go to war, but prayers and pacifism will only get us so far. We’re going to need a lot more of you, all of you who know when to cry and when to fight. It’s hard to tell the difference sometimes — It’s easy to sink into despair when what’s needed is a lifted chin, easy to be angry when we could solve more with vulnerable honesty. We’re going to need you all to lead the way, to show us when to cry, when to fight, and when to celebrate.
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