Welcome back, me.
Letter #74: A two month writing hiatus while things got busy, but I've been encouraged to keep up the practice of writing from friends and strangers sitting next to me on the plane.
I’ve been working nearly full-time. What started as a temporary, part-time, remote gig to help out a law firm my dad’s been working with, has turned into a full-blown, all-consuming opportunity. Before I was able to balance keeping up with the newsletter, get some work done, AND maintain a meditation practice. But all that went out the window over the last three months as our lead attorney opened her own firm and took all of us with her. Five women working together—soon to be eight—and the referrals pouring in with no end in sight. My role continues to evolve as I take on whatever the team needs—a new system implemented, new team members interviewed and onboarded, clients scheduled and rescheduled, and now team management. A temp role to help out while they looked for a full-time person has changed drastically.
But it’s been wonderful. I love the people. They’re funny, down to earth, travel to exotic places, and love to wrap up a team meeting with a glass of wine. We’re patient with each other as we learn to work together, and all hands are in while we build a solid foundation.
My fears of whether or not I’d find work once I finished up my year of travel were unfounded. Why did I spend so much time worrying about something I could’ve never predicted? The opportunity came knocking, and I answered. The rest is history. Now I’m developing a new career for myself in how I can help a team from the inside out, and troubleshoot building a system that will set up a company’s foundation for the long haul. A jack of all trades, maybe a master of one or two.
I just spent the past two weeks in LA, visiting my lifelong best friend, Alie, her husband Nate (who has also become a lifelong best friend), and their two daughters, Rowan and Margot. I worked remotely while I was there, which has been my dream all along. To do great, productive work, but on my terms. Alie and I took the girls to get tacos in the middle of the day, I could take a quick break to soothe a crying baby or throw together a toddler size bowl of yogurt, and still had plenty of bandwidth to produce for my law firm team. It’s amazing what can be done when a job isn’t draining your emotional energy.
On the flight home, I began reading my second Lisa Taddeo book. I was immediately shook by how raw her writing is—it was like she could see all my thoughts and wrote them out for me. I felt exposed, and instantly inspired. I raced through a couple chapters before a memory flashed into my head about a flight I took years ago. I had the sudden urge to write it all down. Before I knew it, I was writing again. When the plane landed, the woman next to me leaned over and goes “I must say, you are such a prolific writer!” I couldn’t recall what ‘prolific’ meant, but I knew it was a compliment. Encouragement from a stranger to keep up my practice.
02/07/2024
I can’t remember which trip it was—maybe my third. It was a routine flight and yet I looked forward to it. Someone else booking the huge black Suburban that would pick me up from my humble Brooklyn apartment. Arriving at the airport, using the business class ticket purchased with someone else’s credit card, granting me access into a priority lounge where I could indulge in a pre-flight glass of wine—a selection of around five reds that looked at least one price point higher than what I would buy for myself.
I enjoyed being anonymous in those lounges, hoping other people—richer people—would wonder how I came to earn a seat at that same table where they poured themselves a pre-flight chardonnay, going through the same motions as me.
We boarded before everyone else, me feeling guiltily smug as I knew those waiting to board for economy class were watching who boards during the first and business class roll call. And yet, I reminded myself I’d never pay the several thousand dollars it takes to be in a seat that lays all the way down for a nearly 20 hour flight. Personally, I’d ALWAYS opt for the cheapest ticket, standing where those other passengers stood, watching who gets to board first and wondering why life turns out the way it does.
But for that one week or so, I got to enjoy the perks of someone else having money and using it so I could work overseas, of having someone else book everything for me.
I settled into my cushy seat, feeling like I had my own little cocoon with a quaint gift bag of items that would make my flight that much more comfortable.
The flight attendant passes by with flutes of champagne, the glasses real and breakable, placing actual weight in your hand. Why first and business class can be trusted with real glass but economy cannot is something that’s hard to understand and seems unjustifiable (although it could be argued many ways—not efficient, but so wasteful! Too many people to serve—but also classist!). Either way, it didn’t matter because I graciously accepted the glass as though this was the way I was always accustomed to travel.
And then I began arranging my seat, the leg rest and back rest motorized by buttons along the armrest, knowing that I could perfectly position myself for at least 7 hours of sleep on the flight from Newark to Shanghai.
I indulge in my favorite flight activity—scanning the movie list and making a mental note of all the films I want to watch, knowing I’ll get through at least 4 of them on that one flight alone. I repeatedly accept a refill of wine from the flight attendant, well after I finish my dinner—which is served as a three-course meal on ceramic plates with heavy silverware. The flight attendants seem used to passengers at the front of the plane ordering more than 3 drinks, as though their discretion in alcohol consumption is the same discretion that has been used to create the type of life that affords one a seat at the front of the plane.
And so I begin my movie binge, enjoying having the next nearly 24 hours render me unreachable to the rest of the world. I was unlikely to open my laptop to complete any work, so, save for the fellow co-workers that may have been traveling with me, I wouldn’t be receiving any messages for nearly an entire day. To be hunkered down in my own little plane cocoon, drifting in and out of sleep and movies, waking myself up in time only to order a custom ice cream sundae from the passing dessert cart…well these were long haul flights I actually wished would never end.
It feels good to disappear for a little bit, no one asking anything of you.
One of these flights is forever burned into my memory.
I woke up in the middle of the flight. I had to pee, and so I threw back my cozy blanket, adjusted my seat back to its right position so I could stand, and quietly made my way to the front of the plane, past hundreds of other sleeping passengers.
Sleeping on a plane is such a strange vulnerability that we all collectively agree to, but only when flying. There’s an understanding that when the lights dim, we’ll all be quiet, making as little disruption as possible so that the strangers around us can escape. None of us know each other’s names, stories, destinations, what we’re hiding from, how desperately some of us need the rest. And yet, we fall asleep next to one another without questioning it.
There is a unique intimacy about it, isn’t there? We may refuse to fall asleep in a bed next to a family member, many of us would never dream of sleeping in a hostel dorm room with 10 beds, and we lock up our houses at night with security systems so that no unknown persons may enter and rob us of our possessions. But we’ll fall asleep willingly in a collective mass of human bodies all breathing in the same air. And some of our most valuable personal items lay exposed in seat pockets, stored in luggage in overhead bins above us, all of us abiding by an unspoken rule that we won’t steal from each other while we’re sleeping.
The human body functions like a robot, needing to shut down to recharge. And when the flight attendants decide it’s time for a nap, they dim the cabin lights, encourage us to close the window shades, and all of us elect to recharge together.
I made my way past lumps of bodies breathing lightly beneath the airplane blankets. The front bathroom was unoccupied, so I opened the door, my eyes immediately blinded by a flood of electric blue light. A large portal window sat just above the toilet, filling the small space with a light that seemed so foreign in the otherwise dark, demure environment of the sleepy cabin.
I was groggy and confused from sleep, having to take a moment to remember where I was and where I was headed. I leaned over the toilet to peer out the window—was it day time? I had zero concept of how long we’d been in flight, and what time zone we were in.
As my eyes adjusted, I realized I was looking at glacial waters. Behind them, a bright sky deceives its viewer into believing it’s noon, when in fact we must have been passing by somewhere so cold, so remote, that the sun surely would not function in a 10-12 hour period of daylight that we are accustomed to seeing when living closer to the equator.
It was a deep blue I’d never witnessed before. Not teal like the water of the Caribbean, but also not the dark blue, almost black that you see in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. It was alarmingly vibrant, the most saturated color I’d ever seen in my life. The sheets of white ice that lay cracked across the surface were so bright, my eyes could barely handle observing those two colors at the same time.
I had the thought that this may be the only time I ever witness this visual of nature in my life. It was like discovering a secret place everyone’s been looking for. I immediately had an adrenaline rush, the urge to fling open the bathroom door and gently nudge my fellow passengers awake so they might open their window shades and marvel at this beauty with me.
Even recalling that feeling while I write this, I’m teary-eyed to think I didn’t experience a sight so beautiful with someone I love.
When I got back to my seat, I clicked around on the TV in my pod until I found the flight map. We were flying over the Arctic Ocean, as close to the North Pole as I’d ever get in my life. Our arc stretched up over Greenland, and back down over Russia. I was fascinated by the notion that we wouldn’t just fly straight across the Atlantic, over Europe, and then make our way south to Shanghai. That the plane would dare venture so close to the end of the Earth blew my mind. I sunk even further into this feeling of disappearing, of being so offline that no one would be able to locate me (at least for the next ten hours). How mankind has developed technology to direct a double-decker plane that close to the poles will always be a source of childlike wonder for me—along with the fact that a plane can even get up into the air in the first place, or that a 260K ton cruise ship can stay afloat. A childlike wonder my brain would never be able to compute, and so it’s better for me to leave it to the experts. No need in trying to understand it.
Instead, I settled back into my seat, and quietly counted my blessings. The opportunities that have come my way in life that allowed me to experience these two deeply saturated colors side-by-side in a way that only nature can achieve. The doors that opened that I walked through to afford me the chance to travel to the other side of the world to work with another—very foreign—culture. The gift of one long stretch of alone time.
Back in my own reality, my long haul flights are spent in economy class. I’m spared the luxuries of being at the front of the plane, but I am ever aware of my own privilege in taking flights by myself, anywhere around the world. Of trusting my intuition, answering the door when the dream came knocking so loudly I could no longer ignore it. No more drinking out of glass champagne flutes, no more ice cream carts, and I’d be hard-pressed to expect another view over over the glacial waters of the Arctic Ocean. But I have this open feeling of freedom of going whenever, wherever I want, and for however long I want to be away. It’s felt like such a solid trade.
And yet, that vibrant blue shock of light is forever seared into my memory, and I’m amazed at how easily I can recall and relive that experience.
Hey! Would you like to connect over creativity, self-growth, and problem-solving? Please book a time on my Calendly for us to chat! I can’t wait to see you. XOXO.
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So, so beautifully written 🤍
Amazing! Thank you.