Always pack a toothbrush

I should be on an airplane right now, winging my way towards my brother's place in Oregon, there to be joyfully reunited with both of my siblings and the entire collection of nieces.  But no, instead I am in a hotel room in Detroit, directly under the runway approach, with a rescheduled flight out tomorrow around noon.  My flight from Ithaca was delayed just long enough due to "technical difficulties" to make every passenger miss their connecting flights.  But it could be worse.  My brother reminded me as I whinging on the phone about this delay that it used to take ages and ages to get across the country with covered wagons and now we expect instant gratification.  So what's another day.  I have my toothbrush with me.  I'm looking forward to sleeping a long time tonight too.

I spent several prime years of my life being terrified of flying.  That stemmed from:

1) a scary flight through a thunderstorm in a DC-3 coming home from Haiti

2) all of those mysterious exploding airplane news stories where all it took was ONE LOOSE SCREW or an errant pigeon to take down a whole plane

3) my very vivid imagination of free-fall and nosedives

I learned to like trains, criss-crossing the country reading books and meeting cool people and making sketches.  But I also missed a lot of adventures, and the few times I had to fly during those years probably took a few years off my life because of the pure white-knuckle terror.  But then my sister moved to Japan, and I wanted to be able to visit.  My high school friend Belynda and I travelled to Tokyo, and in the process I faced my fears and conquered them.  Now I kind of like it...the view from up there is fantastic.