A skyward slam

A slam poem is verse meant to be performed; a poem that lends itself to oral presentation.
I've always been enthralled by this art form and so today, for you, is a slam about why I love aviation.  I'm not sure if it makes perfect sense, but that is the beauty of art... it doesn't have to :)

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I think to myself as I greet the flight attendant at the boarding door that none of my friends or family would have suspected that my sixteen-year-old self would have been incredibly afraid right now.
Not afraid to fly, more afraid to die in a situation I can’t control.
Like a plane crash.

The sound of air rushing by dulls the music in my headphones
and the last rays of sunlight catch the silver lining on the engine.

There is an attitude about the sky tonight.
Its orange is an airborne flame
Its red is screaming for attention
And the dark blue it fades to pacifies the temper of the heavens, like a blanket draped over a newborn child that wants nothing more than his mother.

Time passes by as effortlessly as the endless crop circles and swimming pools below and I remember the days when I was ten years old and would lay down across the trunk of my mom’s car in the driveway and wait for the sound of a jet engine.
The clouds would be moved by a wind that brushed my brown hair over my forehead and
there was a blue afternoon sky that’d get deeper the higher I stared.
There was a time I thought I could stare skyward forever.

Without warning, the sound of the jet I’d been eagerly anticipating would rattle the calm afternoon air…I could hear the plane coming so my eyes would dart around the sky to find it.

My grandma would tap my shoulder, point to the plane and ask me what kind it was.
Boeing 737-500. Continental Airlines.
Easy.

Grandma would walk away, content I knew the answer, and my eyes would quickly refocus above waiting for the next airborne thrill.
She died not long after that.

“A beverage for you, sir?” asks the flight attendant.
I smile and take a cup of water.

Out the window, the last bands of color tell me that daylight has been tucked in to bed and I wonder what it will dream about. 
The smooth ride tells me that the heavens don’t mind us visiting tonight and
I wonder if my grandma knows that I came to say hello.
My sixteen-year-old self wouldn’t have been afraid anymore. 

I remember how small I felt on the trunk of that car and I consider how small I feel now.
I remember all the times Mom and Dad took me to the airport to watch the planes and they sat in the car reading a magazine for hours while I’d eagerly scream, “Look, a Continental 757!”
They would act excited even though it was no less than the 20^th one I’d seen that day.
I remember the facts I made up in 5^th grade, like a Boeing 727 having 900 seats, just to make my friends think I knew what in the hell I was talking about.

I drift in and out of sleep as I flip through my mind’s photo album.

My grandma would ask me if I had seen any planes on the way to her house and I’d say yes and go into elaborate detail about the Saab 340 that came in so low over Northern Blvd I thought it’d clip an apartment building. 
I felt her tap on my shoulder to point out another airplane and I was suddenly startled awake.

“Dude, the plane landed… time to get off.”
The man in 20C seems amused that I somehow fell into such a deep sleep, the landing didn’t even wake me up.

I knock on the aluminum frame of the plane on the way out as if to say
Thanks for the visit.
And as I drive home from the airport, the flashing red lights in the night sky
remind me that perhaps
I should call home more often.

Day One: Epic Fail

NicoDerm aired a commercial that encapsulates what I am well on the road to becoming if I don’t catch myself and set course for higher ground.  If you haven’t seen this spot of advertising genius, give it a quick watch here:

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what I am trying not to become even though it’d be so much easier and so much damn funnier if I did.

The worst part is, some of this – most of this, actually, is entirely my fault!  I should have known better than to pick up a trip that had a 3-hour sit in JFK and a 3-hour sit in Syracuse on the same day.  Really, I should have known better.   And I should have run for the hills screaming bloody murder when my first customer interaction of said trip went as follows with a twenty-something hipster girl wearing no shoes, black spandex, a pink t-shirt and a torn orange moo-moo with wilted flowers in her hair:

Me: Good morning, welcome aboard.

(Customer freezes and stares at me blankly, not moving)

Me: Did you need help with something?

Customer: What do I do now?

Me: You sit.

Customer: Where?

Me: In your assigned seat.

Customer: How do I know where that is?!

*Let me just point out that this was asked with an exasperated sigh and arms flailing in the wind, as if she was expected to also explain to me the meaning of life while balancing on one foot and juggling seven oranges on a tight rope over the Grand Canyon.

Me (after looking at boarding pass): Your seat is 17D, it’s the window seat on your left side at row 17.

Customer: Where is row 17?

Me: It’s between 16 and 18.

Customer: Is it far from here?

Pardon me while I place my head into an overhead bin and attempt to slam the door shut approximately twenty times. Empathy, Ben, empathy. Breathe. Maybe she’s nervous.  Maybe she doesn’t fly much.  Maybe, just maybe, she never learned to count. These are all possibilities I’m pondering to give Lady Moo-Moo a pass when a middle-aged woman boards our Charlotte-bound flight and breaks my train of thought.

“Hi, good morning,” I say, noticing her denim Mickey Mouse hat and instantly wishing I had gotten a second cup of coffee.

“Yes, hi, hello, how are you?” she responds.  “May I have some water? I need to take an anti-diarrhea pill. I get awful stomach cramps when I fly.  I keep the pills right here just incase I get the poops,” she says, joyfully pointing to a black leather fanny pack slouching sideways off her figure and simultaneously giving me a thumbs-up with her other hand.

Let me go try that overhead bin door one more time…

This is going to be much harder than I thought.

The beginning...

I am sound asleep when the blaring tone of my hotel room’s telephone manages to not only give me a minor heart attack, but also becomes an instant and solemn reminder of the fact that it is 3:30 in the morning and it’s time to go to work.  Without my saying a word, the automated voice on the other line cheerfully wishes me, “Good morning!” and goes on to assure me that “It’s a beautiful day out there today!”  Naturally, my first instinct is to scream some combination of expletives and throw the phone against the wall.  When the back-up alarm I set on my iPhone goes off two minutes later, I get dangerously close to actually doing it. 

The truth of the matter is that I live, breathe, eat and experience stupidity on a daily basis.  Every flight attendant does and it’s what makes that 3:30am phone call even more brutal; it’s a disappointment akin to realizing that you’ve made it all the way home from the Chinese restaurant with someone else’s takeout and heaven only knows that shrimp Lo Mein was the last thing you wanted.  Stupidity cuddles up to me like a warm comforter in the dead of the New England winter.  It sneaks up on me like the hangover I’ll inevitably get from that extra vodka drink I really didn’t need last night, but took anyway because it was a stressful day and the Captain was buying.

Let’s be clear; while there is a copious amount of entertainment value in much of what we see as flight attendants, my experience has shown me that despite what we perceive as hilarity, we are really only giggling because had we not laughed, we’d probably cry.  Bawl, actually. There are tremendous rewards that come with being an ambassador of the skies, but not without an all-too-frequent reminder that the world is a very imperfect place.  I do believe it’s true that imperfection can be a beautiful thing, but it becomes shockingly less so when you are hurdling through the air in a pressurized soda can filled with worn seats that reek of beer farts and old lady perfume.

As you can imagine, it becomes very easy to complain.  In fact, I’ve become quite good at it myself.  I am fairly certain that if complaining were to become an Olympic sport, I’d medal without much effort.  I certainly wouldn’t need to train, I could still eat whatever I wanted and I wouldn’t need to worry about how dashing I’d look in a skimpy red, white and blue Speedo.   Seeing as how that probably won’t happen in time for Rio 2016, what I’ve come to realize instead is that my complaining is actually a sign that I have reached a very crucial crossroads that every flight attendant comes to sometime in his or her career; the decision to willingly become a bitter sky hag, or to shift my perspective and embrace the idea of gratitude, forgiveness and understanding. 

It’d be much easier to keep complaining. Instead, however, I am committing myself to a major attitude overhaul, not only in my line of work, but also in my daily life.  Since we in the Western world spend so much of our time working, it seems natural to me that many of our biggest epitomes stem in some capacity from our jobs.  They are, in all-too-many ways, our existence.  My goal? To change the nature of my existence without changing my job.  I think it’s possible and I hope you’ll follow along.  Quite honestly, I’m not quite sure when, where or how this will all happen and in all actuality, it’s as exciting as it is gut wrenching.   I’ve taken wisdom from the lyrics of my favorite Florence & The Machine song by coming to understand that “it’s always darkest before the dawn.”

Speaking of which, I better get to sleep.  It’s almost 3:30am.