What is it about the return flight and introspection? As we lift off the runway, I can feel my mind float away from the hurried outbound and the even more hurried when-you-were-there. All the planning and packing and getting to the airport early enough and the meetings and the dinners…done.
And all that remains is the return flight.
The mind unspools a bit, I think. What had been percolating towards the back slides to the front on a curtain of white noise. Ideas, ruminations, recollections. New growth pokes through the freshly-churned topsoil of the brain.
Is this just me?
I never have this kind of return flight when I’m traveling with my family. That’s always about making sure everyone is not-lost, primarily. Even once settled on the plane, there are games to be
Work trips are different. Flying “there” I work, preparing. Going over pre-production schedules or strategy documents or reading up on whatever I’m getting into. Once “there”, work happens with little time to reflect on much else besides The Work.
But it seems that while I’m there, using my brain to Work, it’s also taking notes on scraps of paper that it stuffs down into the seat cushions. Thoughts about the city I’m in, the people I’m with, the job I’m doing, the life I’ve chosen. Jots down a few things and tucks them away for later.
In and out, get the job done, head home.
In Judeo-Christian theology, there’s an old concept called Abraham’s Bosom. It’s a place where the faithful dead wait for judgment day in a sort of not-quite-heaven paradise. It’s a limbo, of sorts. But without the uncertainty that is often associated with the word “limbo”. They know where they are, they are happy, hanging out with Abraham, and they are headed to a better place.
The return flight is a bit like that, I think (work with me here). You’re in a place you can’t get out of until someone says, “Ok, time to leave.” And it’s pretty decent, as far as waiting rooms go. There’s food, friendly service, unlimited coffee, that book I’ve been meaning to read, and more movies than I could ever watch.
And in that space, you don’t have to worry because there’s nothing you need to do. Your job is to sit there, relax, and go home. Be a good little flyer.
I wonder if they blog in Abraham’s Bosom. I hope they at least get complimentary snacks.
As the wheels leave the tarmac—and I smile at that sweet recline that comes from the ascent—my brain is like, “Hey! Remember all these little notes we’ve been making over the last few days? Let’s take a look and see what we’ve got!”
Once it was a
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not like some sort of mile-high John Steinbeck. On a recent cross-country return flight, I watched a movie and three episodes of The Last O.G.—sometimes that’s what the brain needs, too (maybe?).
But occasionally, as you grab your seat belt buckle to fasten it securely around your waist, you find a note or two. Hastily scrawled while you were between scenes or meetings or after the third cocktail of the night.
And the next thing you know, you’ve started a blog again.
The header photo was taken by my dad sometime in the early
