A priest, a film snob, and a boxer walk into a plane

What my fear of flying taught me

Raised between Italy and the United States, I’m not sure how young I was when I got on my first plane. But from an early age, flying was built into the fabric of my life. One must see family and, in my case, the only way to see family required getting on a plane and flying across Europe and the ocean. So, of course, developing a fear of flying was just about the dumbest thing I could do. My practical nature rebelled at the nonsensical new feelings that suddenly sprouted one lonely late afternoon at Logan International Airport in 2010.

Of all the secrets one can reveal to their parents, the one I’m about to share is the least salacious and thus most comforting to parents. Mother, father: I do actually know when and how I developed my fear of flying. I was 15 and had just wrapped up a tour of American boarding schools that I’d be applying to in the next few months to start the following fall. We’d timed the tour to end at Groton, the boarding school my older brother attended, so that my parents could go to Parents’ Weekend while I flew back to Italy alone to prep for a grueling Latin test (are any of them not grueling?).

That’s how I found myself at Logan Airport on a cold, gloomy day in mid-October all alone, waiting to board a flight to Rome. Or Milan. The details fade in the wake of what would happen.

If you’ve never experienced a late afternoon in New England, let me describe the particular sadness that can seep in. The days have a coldness with an edge to it that means no matter what you wear, it’ll find a way to cut through and chill you to the bone. And, because you can’t find a logical place the cold is making its way in, you’ll have no way to stop it. Therefore, in New England, there are three certainties: death, taxes, and a chill. Then, let’s add the visuals. While beautiful, the fall sky will have a grey tinge to it regardless of the weather. Blue-grey skies on a sunny day. Grey-grey skies on a cloudy day. Purple-grey skies on a stormy day. And when the sun goes down, the grey becomes a cold-toned grey, if it wasn’t already. So, overall, Boston’s fall carries a distinct set of elements that unsettle you and make you feel a bit grim.

I’ve been flying internationally all my life, often without parents, just my brother and I. Historically, they’ve been some fun moments we’ve shared. One time, knowing our mother would never buy it for us, we shared an eggnog latte before boarding the plane. I felt naughty and giddy, though the latter might have been due to the sugar in the drink. Beyond this memory, I’ve flown through Logan countless times and until that day, had always felt a sweet kinship towards it, like a place that to many is transitory but to me was a recurring and friendly presence. Not to mention my grandmother’s dog was called Logan and, although it caused some confusion about how we name dogs, it did make it an even more comforting place.

But being there on that fall day, all these friendly elements felt warped. People were cheerful and chatty around me, but instead of reminding me of why I love Logan Airport, the chatter suddenly felt isolating. Everyone had someone (or so it felt), and I was sitting there, lonely. Looking out the window didn’t help because the weather conveyed the same feeling in temperatures and look. A cold, distancing weather. Not an ounce of comfort to derive from it.

Things became menacing. The TSA agent brusquely motioning me through the sensor seemed angry at me. The person looking for a seat with an intent expression on their face made me wonder if they were on the hunt for more than a place to sit. And the people waiting to board my flight looked like they’d hand me over in a second if the plane were hi-jacked. After all, I was clearly unattached and thus, an easier person to sacrifice.

As someone who suffers from Reynaud’s, I know what it’s like to feel the warmth leave your body regardless of what you do to stem it. The heat loss will not be stopped and the cold flows in, inexorably. That’s how I felt at Logan that afternoon: I couldn’t do anything to keep the good thoughts in, while the bad ones had no trouble finding their way inside.

Things I’d never worried about barged into my consciousness. Ridiculous things like, “Is the plane balanced well? What if this is the one time they forgot to check weight distribution? What about wind? Do they know how windy it is outside? It felt windier than normal. And—of God, I have a window seat over the wing. If the motors explode mid-flight, I’ll die immediately. But maybe that’s better. Or maybe when they burst they’ll rip a tear into the plane’s fuselage and I’ll be in a great seat to make an easy escape. Unless the rip is so wide I get sucked out, in which case an aisle seat would be better. Or maybe a seat over the other wing would be better, so I could scamper out that side. Unless that motor explodes, in which case I’m way better off on this end.” The mental litany went on and on.

Sitting on the plane, I felt even more unmoored from everything and everyone. In a move I learned from ostriches, I decided to hide from it. I pulled up my scarf so high that it covered my eyes. I must have looked insane. Or like a very awkward teenager. While I was trying to stop my mind from panicking at having a window seat, I started thinking of violent scenarios, ones I’d never envisioned even after 9/11. I remembered what my father told my brother and I: that if anyone ever hi-jacked our plane, we should give them our Italian passport, not the American one. “After all, who hates Italians?” So, I made sure to have it handy. Then, as if on cue, a voice on my right said: “You’re not planning on holding up the plane, are you?”

I pulled down my scarf and looked at the voice coming from one of those sweet old ladies who look like they’re made of spun sugar, with wispy hair and crinkly, translucent skin. Instead of replying “No,” I laughed nervously and then started thinking, “Oh God, what if I’ve been brainwashed and I am about to do something horrible? Would I know? What if I snap on this plane? ‘She was always a nice girl,’ they’ll say ‘no one would have ever guessed she’d hold up a plane!’” The old lady elaborated, “Because of the scarf…?”

This poor woman mistook my hesitation for confusion when, in fact, I understood her perfectly and was working hard to corroborate her joke in my head. I managed to drag myself out of my ravings to assure her in very nervous, frantic, and concerningly (based on her face) earnest tones that I was not in fact planning on doing such a thing. I followed that up by blurting out, half-laughing, that in fact I was scared of flying for the first time in my life. This prompted a lot of kind questions to understand how she could reassure me and some general questions about myself to distract me from the plane’s movements. The only thing that really stuck with me all these years is when she said that, if nothing else, I can always look around me: if no one else looks worried, I’m probably fine. For that reason alone, even as I’ve tamed my fear in recent years, I still prefer flying coach, where I’m surrounded by people whose reactions I can trust more than my own. It’s also why I’m immune to the appeal of flying private, but that’s more of a personal victory (and kind of an obnoxious brag).

The flight would, predictably, go on to be fine (besides some turbulence that I white-knuckled my way through). But my experience flying would forever be changed. Not only would I be scared of flying from then on, but I’d also develop a new way of controlling the fear: engaging people in conversation.

The woman’s efforts to distract me worked, which is why for a few years after that flight, I’d wait for my seat-mate to arrive and settle in before gathering my courage to say: “Hi, I’m sorry. I’m really scared of flying. Would you mind talking to me during take-off to distract me?”

It’s a pretty big ask, one that I probably got away with because I was young and alone. It was also a pretty safe place to do it because they couldn’t kidnap me until after the plane landed and, in case I did talk to someone meaning to do violence, maybe my guileless fear would push them to have a change of heart.

This technique did sort of work by giving me something else to focus on during take-off, the most upsetting part of flying (and, as someone once told me, also the one where things are most likely to go wrong). It’s also the most socially accepted part of a flight to demand someone’s attention.

This approach brought interesting people into my life. The first person I got help from after the lady, was a Catholic priest on a Milan-Boston flight. When he sat down next to me, I was thrilled. Here’s someone whose wisdom and listening skills are perfectly suited to soothe me! Well, somehow, I’d share that I’m Jewish, and soon his conversation became about him bringing me into Christ’s fold. When I told him I was afraid the plane might fall out of the air, he said, “If you believed in Jesus he wouldn’t let that happen.” A bold, mid-air attempt to convert me. He made other pushes to bring me around, but before he managed to change my mind about Judaism, the plane leveled out and my fear waned. I might be Christian today if it weren’t for the length of that take-off. Of course, when the raunchy 2010s comedy with Jason Bateman and some other leading man paused on a sexy love scene when the captain made an announcement and the priest saw my screen and then made disappointed eye contact with me, he probably realized just how far this little lamb had strayed from the righteous flock. This is a true story, by the way.

Other people I’ve met include a man who claimed to be a two-time, boxing world champion, on a connecting flight to Rome. He gave me his gym’s name to look up after my Christmas break. I did, but nothing came up that matched the data he shared. Did he lie? How could he, during the sacred take-off talk!

I also met a French psychoanalyst who tried to cure me of my phobia with logic on a flight to Paris. I don’t know what’s more impressive—a licensed medical professional using logic to undo an irrational fear or his confidence that he could do this in 90 minutes. Either way, he failed on both counts. Though maybe that’s on me since my French is not good enough to convey deep thoughts.

The last time I employed this technique, I was on a flight from San Francisco back to Boston after freshman year of college. A guy sat next to me and when he heard I was a film lover, shared his favorite film. I already had a bad feeling when he opened with, “You’ve probably never heard of it.” And when he said his favorite movie isn’t really even a film but a moving art piece called La Jetée, I suddenly found myself welcoming a turbulent, silent take-off. I told him that in fact I was familiar with the movie as it was part of the required viewing for my school’s entry-level film course. Maybe seeing his pompous smugness wilt cured me of some of my fear.

an image from the movie La Jetée

What would really cure me—as much as one can be cured of irrational, emotion-based fears—is yoga. The technique of slowly breathing in in measured counts really helps. My friend Audrey also offered life-changing advice when she told me to just count to ten over and over because I could handle anything in ten second increments (I was upset and crying when she told me this). And then, the final touch, would be feeling the weight of my hand on my chest. These days, with that reassuring weight, breathing in and out in ten second chunks, I can really get through most things that happen on a plane and you wouldn’t know I’m uneasy.

Sometimes, though, the old fear emerges. This has helped me pinpoint why my fear started all those years ago at Logan. Flying makes me feel lonely. Not alone; lonely. I can be with someone or flying solo, but there is something about the activity that makes me realize how aside you can be. Within things but not a part of things. Emotions also factor into this. When I’ve had some intense revelations or periods of life, my fear has returned. As if these feelings wrapped around me and made me feel apart from others.

Flying reminds me that just because you are in the world does not mean you are connected to it. In that dreaded metal tube, I realize I’m split in half. While my legs are safely anchored to the ground, my top half is like a balloon flying above, connected by a thin string, and making me a creature you wouldn’t easily label as “human.” Anchored but not whole. Flying has become an interesting litmus test of where I’m at emotionally. When I’m feeling lonely and separate from others, I’m afraid of flying. But when I’m not feeling lonely, I can take it. And that’s how I learned the difference between being lonely and alone. I’ve flown when I’ve been alone and suffered not a whit. But when I’ve flown and been lonely, in company of fellow travelers or not, I’ve been terrified.

I’m not sure what to do with this knowledge. It’s helpful because I can gage, in the moment, where I’m at. Of course, I can’t exactly hop on a flight anytime I want to see how I’m feeling, but I suppose it’s a helpful by-product of flying. Like getting a blood test at the doctor’s when you already know you have another illness.

I suppose it also shows me that once upon a time, when faced with difficult moments, I used to reach out. These days I tend to shut down and shut others out. So, maybe that’s another good thing I can wring out of this fear that has tormented me for so long: the mental nudge that I used to ask for help. I should go back to that, reach for others in times of need instead of assuming there’s nothing they can do. Because, even if I found him supremely annoying, La-Jetée-lover did get me through a bumpy take-off.