Plane air

 The temperature got warmer all of a sudden. 

Up until that moment during the three-and-a-half-hour flight, the plane had felt drafty and frigid. I imagined we had crossed some point in the world between the arctic North and tropical South, though I could only make an estimation based on elapsed time. 

I certainly hadn't ponied up for WiFi. 

I might have asked my husband where the dashes and dots appeared on the map as if such movie icons could materialize in real-time. But he had drawn the long straw assigned seating and managed a bulkhead seat that might as well have been a lounge chair for all the space it gave him. 

He tried to make my side of the sardine can more comfortable by offering to share one of his wireless earbuds so I could at least listen to a movie he had downloaded … but I demurred. I didn't want to listen to things explode. 

I'm already an anxious traveler. 

So I fidgeted in my aisle seat, vacillating between playing games of backgammon on my phone and pretending to doze off. 

The girl had the window and was tapping away at her screen. Earphones blot out the jet stream of sounds recirculating in the cabin, which range from mechanical to mucousy. 

The boy, a monkey in our middle, had fallen asleep on this flight and the one before it. His head wobbled from side to side as the plane shimmied from one pocket of turbulence to another. 

The two of us wagered the odds of him sleeping through the third and final leg of the journey. Magic 8 Ball says: “All Signs Point To Yes.”

A steady stream of fellow passengers mill past us to get to the lavatories. They navigate past without grazing any part of my person. They are careful and I have tucked my arms in between the armrests. 

I have learned from the man who doffed the head of a woman sitting on her suitcase near the moving sidewalk as he dangled his arm over the handrail. 

Jerks. Forever sprawling past their fair share of space.  

My husband, sensing my angry thoughts, pulls his elbows into his body. He doesn't notice I am telegraphing instructions to return his seat to its upright position for landing.

From my mind to the flight attendant’s mouth. He pretends he didn't notice though everyone knows great wars have been waged over that angled inch. 

Turns out we were six miles above sea level and headed into our descent.

The cabin lights switch off as the Fasten Seatbelt sign comes to life with a crystal-tinked ding.

It occurred to me then, that the whole ride had been a breeze. Not once had the baby in the seat ahead of us, who had smiled beatifically as he was bounced and juggled between his equally placid parents, seemed disgruntled. Not once did my own children argue. And not once did I  wish minor, irritating harm on my fellow man.

We all just seemed to float effortlessly, harmoniously together.

And before I knew it we had landed, smooth as silk. Passengers erupt into applause of appreciation. I hadn't even been worried. Now I was grateful.