Renee Oelrich

On a recent trip to the coast, I find myself sitting on the aisle seat next to two youths. I’m wearing my lucky Lynx socks, my lucky Twins sweatshirt and my lucky Wild ballcap. The fact that I hate flying because of the turbulence is why I have three lucky items on for good measure. I put my laptop on the flip down table and get ready to do some writing, reading and editing; anything to take my focus off the airplane. The girl sitting next to me seems anxious and fidgety. The young guy next to her is leaning against the wall staring out the window. I’m guessing the young guy is early teens and the girl is a few years younger than that. She keeps looking at her phone and twisting it in her hand. I look at my laptop, open up to a story I’m working on and start to read and edit from the last place I left off. I try to focus but the girl is moving too much, and I find it distracting. I look her way and tell her that it’s okay to put her phone on now. She looks at her phone, then up at me and asks, “do you think planes are safe?” I tell her, yes, for the most part, just have to believe it’s not our time yet. She turns her phone on but continues talking with me. She wants to know if I fly allot and if she’ll get used to it if she flies more. I tell her, no, I don’t fly allot and no one ever really gets use to it. It’s just one of those things we do whether we like it or not. She looks at her phone and brings up her photos of who I’ll guess is friends and family. I read through another paragraph before she asks if feeling sick to her stomach is normal or if she really is sick. I tell her it’s normal, most of us have unsettled tummies when flying, try to drink some water and breathe through your nose. It’s always good to bring a book and read or watch a movie on a laptop, anything to keep you distracted from the plane and flying. She tells me that those are great ideas, that this is her first time and she didn’t think of that. I tell her that you can always look out the window at the clouds. If you look hard enough and long enough, you’ll see all the neat things that the clouds become, like there’s a cloud there that looks like the side of a face and the cloud next to it looks like a donut, so it’s like the face is going to eat the donut. She looks out the window for a moment. I tell her that the clouds are where the Angels play, so they are always forming fun things in the clouds. I like it when they form animals that look like they’re laughing. She is now focused on the clouds out the window, so I go back to another paragraph. Once and awhile, she takes a photo out the window and laughs a bit. Somehow, the young guy next to her, has fallen asleep and she uses that space to keep looking out the window to take photos and smile at the clouds.