Cruising Altitudes & Turbulence
My least favorite thing about flying is the moment of takeoff. It feels like I’m on an accelerating rollercoaster as we speed up, wheels still bumping on the runway. I close my eyes, breathe slowly, and wait for my stomach to drop. I feel it drop the instant the wheels lift from pavement.
For the next two or three minutes, I keep my eyes closed. If I open them too soon, I feel like they are going to either pop out of my head or sink into my face during the climb to ten thousand feet. The discomfort only lasts a few minutes though.
Once we are in the air, at a comfortable cruising altitude, I’m set for the duration of the flight. The actual in air time isn’t anything special. But I am forever amazed at how quickly an airplane can take you places. Like the day I watched the sunrise over the Atlantic, had a full day of meetings, then landed just in time to see the sunset over the Pacific. All thanks to an airplane.
I enjoy the need to disconnect while you are hurdling through the air at hundreds of miles per hour. I’ve never bothered connecting to airplane wifi, and I’m never the last passenger to put my phone in airplane mode. Sometimes I’m even in airplane mode by the jet bridge.
Especially when you are traveling solo, your time in the air is only yours. You can indulge in whatever quiet, solitary activity you’d like without life interrupting. There might be passenger background noise, but it still feels like an anonymous world. Plus, you can catch back up on whatever happened a few vertical miles below when you land.
Most of the time I’m on an airplane, I’m reading. Physical pages inside a printed book that I put in my bag specifically for the flight. Actually, I probably packed two books. I start reading while the plane is still boarding and keep reading until a few rows before mine starts to deplane. It’s usually only for those few minutes my eyes are closed during take off that I stop reading.
Today though, I’m breaking up my in air, quiet, solitary activities. My flight is on the longer side, so I’m using some of this disconnected time to write. Life has been pretty busy on the ground these last few weeks, and it will resume being busy once these airplane wheels touch back down. At cruising altitude, I like that I can relaxedly write while still rushing from one time zone to another.
When things are important to you, you make time to do them whenever and wherever you can. And I’m proud that sharing something I write each week is one of those important things to me. I’ll go back to reading when I’m done, or when we start our descent and they tell me to put my laptop away. Whichever comes first.
For many people, the worst part of flying is the whole thing. I won’t pretend to know how they feel during the flight experience. But I see the fear in their whole body the moment we hit any turbulence. They are tense from hair to toes, preparing for the crash. They snap into full panic mode while the pilot manages rough air as best as possible.
I don’t like when turbulence makes your flight feel like it’s driving down a rutted dirt road with huge potholes either. I don’t know that anyone does. But turbulence happens, at least a little bit every flight. And it doesn’t mean that the worst is coming.
Of course the worst could happen, so I do understand the fear. But the worst outcome is only one possible outcome in a whole world of possibility, so I stick with open-ended possibility. I close my eyes when I need to, take a few deep breaths, and trust that the plane with land safely, like it almost always does.
There will always be turbulence. We have no say in that. But, we do get to choose how we face it.
