The Furious Spinner

Well, I got onto a plane for the first time in 17 years. These are my observations: they make the planes a lot smaller than when I used to fly, and they don't give you any food. Few observations, I'll admit. Not particularly cogent, I'll agree. I'm pretty sure now that all the planes I ever flew (besides a little two-seater) where 747s and jumbo jets--which could be the same thing.

I talked myself into doing it by reminding myself that I was a middle class white woman with so many advantages, and I should be counting my blessings that I have a choice whether I can get on a plane or not. That got me over the threshold and onto the plane. I thought it might quell my fears, or at least enable me to face them.

So you know that thing about facing your fears and getting over them and moving on, etc.: I faced my fears and she's a big bad bitch who ain't goin' away any time soon. I was absolutely mindlessly terrified for nearly the entire flight. Every time the plane bumped a little bit I was reminded of the bad flight I had in 1980 (or 1979) that started this whole thing. (Stewardesses even thought we were going down; ambulances awaited us at the airport to take care of injured.) And when it wasn't bouncing, I thought it wasn't moving. Here's the thing. I know that the odds of me dying in a plane crash are astronomical. It's not that. Before we were in our little jet mishap (they never told us what happened), I thought if you were in a jet crash you'd die and that was that. What I realized after our plane almost came apart (at least that's what it felt like) was that all those people who had ever been in a crash knew what was happening and they were terrified out of their minds--just as I was that day. I was absolutely certain I was going to die and it wasn't pleasant.

So I flew. Mario read to me from the 2005 We'Moon datebook to keep me occupied. (I would link it but I'm at the Scottsdale Public Library and I don't have much time.) I also had my mala and I recited the Tara chant (OM TARA) and the Yeshe Tsoygal chant (OM DAKINI). I felt as though I were going insane. But I didn't. We landed. I don't ever want to do it again.

We're at my parents' place in Scottsdale, although they aren't here. We're spending time with my sister and her family. I woke up first having a bit of trouble breathing, then with vertigo, and now my allergies are badly flared. If it doesn't settle down by tomorrow, we're going to have to leave. This has been the strangest vacation I've ever tried to have.

We're now in the Scottsdale library. It is an amazing library. All I can say is imagine the kind of library you would want and imagine your community had the money to do it and the Scottsdale library is what you would get. If you read my novel Coyote Cowgirl, which begins in Scottsdale, you already know the library has a gigantic quill out front.

Scottsdale is an odd little place. It's so close to Phoenix that it is dwarfed by it. And like so many desert cities, it just seems to go on and on, pavement and strip malls--only the malls are made of fake adobe. Palm trees grow everywhere, tall exotic symbols of the desert, only they aren't native to this area.

As we were walking here from my parents' townhouse, we went along on a quick tour of the sculptures in this park area around the library. In the middle of one of the ponds is a rusted abstract metal sculpture called Don Quixote. It's very expressive--bits of dried blood-colored pieces barely strung together to give a hint of the horse and man that may or may not be there. And the windmills? All around us, I suppose. The docent, a nice 81 year old woman with red hair, told us that the name "Quixote" means "conquering fears." I don't know if it's true or not, but it didn't matter. Just then Mario pointed out two swans floating near the sculpture. Earthbound. Waterbound? More my style these days.

May You Walk on the Earth in Beauty.
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