I miss airplanes. Even their metal-tang stench and those feculent seat-back pockets stuffed with crumbled tissues and cryptic wrappers. I mourn the long winding lines through the maze of security that made me feel like world’s most patient gerbil. And that bottle of Hint water I’d buy as an indulgence for $3.99 in Terminal One whenever I flew United through O’Hare. (The blackberry essence really does elevate the tap water they put in there.)
Travel
was both my career and my hobby. This year, the pandemic torched not only my
profession, but various trips to: Vancouver, the Outer Banks, Cape Cod, Singapore,
Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia to see Angkor Wat (that one stings).
I
know, woe is me. Cue the violins. I recognize that I dangle from a parachute of
privilege. I don’t deserve a dust mote of sympathy.
Despite
all the knock-backs 2020 has doled out, my family is, for the most part, all
healthy. We have not lost our home to ravaging wild fires or simultaneous
hurricanes or suffered at the hands of systemic racism. We are breathing clean
air. We can afford bread and milk and even cave-aged-Gruyére.
My mom owns a cabin 90-minutes away in Michigan that allows us to escape our
increasingly oppressive four walls. We survived the summer, thanks to an Intex
inflatable pool and Steve Jobs’ enduring technologies.
We
are luckier than most, even as 2020 continues to batter against our collective
storm shutters. Spikes in COVID cases. RBG’s passing. Mitch McConnell’s very
existence. Dwindling Netflix content. E-learning. Kindergarten Zoom. Need I
go on?
The
hard truth is that 2020 is the inevitable human hangover after decades of
getting drunk on fossil fuels, deforestation, and capital greed. Here in the States,
we slashed funding for public health, marginalized our working class, and
overdosed on complacency. The end result is penance—for allowing our country to
plummet to such a dire place that we elected an egotistical real-estate mogul
with a spray tan to lead our democracy.
This
year is America’s Walk of Shame. 2020 is hindsight.
To
me, the current landscape is reminiscent of the aftermath of a party.
We
feel only depletion as we survey the apocalyptic remnants of last night’s
rager: Deflated balloons, once buoyant and perky, now cower on the carpet in shrunken
impotence. Abandoned cups litter the floor—those still containing backwashed punch
or flat beer are drained of effervescence. Ceramic serving bowls, caked with
dried bean-dip and browned guacamole, teeter off countertops. Partygoers are passed
out on ratty futons and pool tables, emitting sour-breath snores. The entire
house smells faintly of urine and you realize, head drooping in despondency,
that someone has pissed in the corner. It was fun while it lasted, but the
clean-up, the consequence of our blind arrogance, hardly seems worth it.
Given
the party metaphor, I should disclose, however begrudgingly, that I’m about to turn
forty. Later this week, in fact. So many of us have passed significant
milestones this year in virtual isolation: anniversaries, graduations, weddings,
funerals. I am striving to view this birthday as an honor rather than another chalky,
horse pill to swallow—another proverbial nail in 2020’s coffin. I am trying not
to dwell on the fact that I had planned to be sipping a boozy cocktail on a Phuket
postcard-beach, sucking the life out of some poor pineapple garnish, when
instead my birthday seems destined to be commemorated by lukewarm pizza.
But
I keep reminding myself . . . not everyone gets the banal “Over the Hill”
Hallmark card.
Age
is a gift.
40
is such a nice round number. So many divisors. Which really just means—it’s
high up there. I’m very likely approaching the back nine. Or, at the very least,
aligning my putt on the eighth green, scanning the approaching hill for the
refreshment cart. Perhaps for a Hint water.
Things
are starting to fall apart. I have hip pain. From sleeping! A month ago, I
bought a bladder support device for playing sports and an orthopedic pillow. On
the SAME day. My Amazon ads have never recovered. Sorry if that’s TMI; I sometimes
grapple with boundaries. (Still, the pelvic floor really should be granted more
air time—the struggle is real.) I’m also scheduled for a surgical procedure
next month to remove something that is very likely benign. All in all, my body
is burping up tiny, little SOSes.
Embracing
forty feels surreal and strange because I have a distinct memory of the morning
I woke up on my own mother’s fortieth. I was nine and our front yard was
littered with forty pink, swine yard stakes that my uncle had ordered in
attempt to one-up my mom in their perpetual porcine tug-of-war.
“Lordy,
Lordy, Jan is Forty” the sign read, stabbed into our grass in the shape of a
cut-out cardboard pig.
Lordy,
Lordy, indeed, I thought, my flannel pajama pants tucked into my socks. 40
is OLD.
I
reject that notion now. 80 is old. 80 has even more divisors.
Yesterday
I was driving in the car, listening to the Jimmy Buffett song, Trip Around
the Sun.
It
dawned on me that while I haven’t boarded any airplanes lately, I have been
traveling. We all have. The earth is still propelling forward despite the
lockdowns and stillness, amidst the groundings and closing of borders. Life
exists, even persists, under such a catatonic trance. My passport may be laying
inert in my desk drawer, but I’m in perpetual motion, orbiting that great big
star.
“This year gone by ain’t been a
piece of cake….
I’m just hangin’ on while this
old world keeps spinning
And it’s good to know it’s out
of my control…
Just enjoy this ride on my trip around the sun.”
2020
has granted me a few souvenirs. I finished writing the first draft of a historical
novel. I watched my one kid learn how to ride her two-wheeler and the other
master the doggy paddle. I reconnected with many friends. I lost myself in a boatload
of amazing books. I walked almost every day. I even found 12-packs of Hint
water on sale at Costco.
It’s
not the ride I planned for, nor am I certain of the destination. But it’s still
a journey.
And
so far at least, I haven’t left anything behind in the seat-back pocket. Except
maybe some crumbled Kleenex.
