It’s been a rough week.
Back in the late 1980’s, when people could still smoke on planes, I took a flight home from college at Christmastime. Someone had told me how to get to the airport very early so that I could give my seat to someone in a bigger rush than me, thus earning myself a free flight coupon. I did so, and later that afternoon found myself one flight wealthier and holding a tentative aisle seat on another overbooked flight.
I don’t know what her name was (I know she told me later); she was super cute in that late 80’s way and we bonded about some idiot guy who kept trying to pick her up in the waiting area who looked about as wealthy as he was stereotypical. We talked for maybe 10 minutes before they called us on the plane. She boarded first because she had a real ticket.
I walked inside the plane, and on the way back to my own seat in the suburbs of the aircraft I actually passed her, sitting on the aisle in First Class - right next to the creep that had been attempting to chat her up in the waiting area. She gave me a look that was pure misery, grabbing my arm as I passed by… the creepy guy was full speed ahead with two tiny bottles of Jack Daniels already on his tray. I gave her a fretful expression, but had to keep moving.
Back in the wilderness of Last Class I found that my seat was next to a very tall man who had folded himself into the ultra-economy space next to the window. He looked like a kitten stuck in a Kleenex box. I thought about offering him my aisle seat once everyone had put their stuff away. But I didn’t do that; once the aisle cleared I got up and walked all the way back to the girl with the unfortunate luck in the front and said,
“Hey, Sweetheart,” kneeling beside her, “I just wanted to officially tell you how much I’m gonna miss you all flight. I’ll write you notes and have the stewardess (flight attendants were still called stewardesses back then) pass them up to you.”
“Oh, Baby” she replied as if we’d rehearsed this, “I’m so sorry you’re back there.”
I looked straight at her awful seat companion.
“She told me to buy my ticket earlier but I just didn’t listen. I’m a boy…small brain.”
“Oh, it’s not your fault, honey.” she said, and to really drive it home, she touched my cheek with the side of her right hand.
I have always believed in the power of regional theatre.
“Uh, well,” Mr. Creeptastic muttered. “…do you guys want to sit together?”
“Oh, I’m way in the back of the plane, you wouldn’t want to swap with me.”
“Honey,” she said “I can just sit with you!”
“And leave all this?”
“C’mon.” She got the stewardess’s attention., “Would it be ok if I sat with my fiancé at the back? We couldn’t get tickets together.”
Ok, here she’d raised the bar a little bit. I became aware that neither of us had rings and began to quickly weave a tale where we’d both finished finals and I’d impulsively asked her a few days ago and we were headed home to tell our families as the Ultimate Holiday Surprise.
But the stewardess said it would be fine if the person next to me agreed. The young woman leapt up, and hand in hand we went back to my seat, where the gentleman next to me had the situation explained to him by the stewardess, to his Yuletide Glee.
“Merry Christmas!” we called after him as he walked towards First Class.
We talked through the smoke in our tiny seats for the entire flight. When we got off the plane at the end, my mother was surprised to see this random woman giving me a big hug.
“Was that a friend of yours?” Mom asked.
“Nope. Just met her.”
“Just MET her? Wow. That must have been a good flight!”
“It was pretty cool.”
This really happened. Just like that. A meet cute that was just a person I met once. A met cute. An acquaintance. Super fun. Never saw each other again.
I’ve thought a lot in the last week about these tiny little moments, where complete strangers turn into slightly familiar strangers, and the unique place these brief relationships hold in our lives.
From a neighbor you see now and then, to a co-worker you speak to for maybe five minutes a day, those who are kind to us become important to us. Social harmony is always appreciated, and once those who offer it leave our orbits, the loss can feel heavier than the sum or depth of time spent together.
Most of the people I’ve met in my life I will never lay eyes on again, that’s just the algebra of time, but I would like to dedicate this moment to those moments, kindness flashing into existence like summer lightning, right when I most needed it; the nuns who blessed me on the sidewalk before my senior year finals, the van full of folks who gave us a ride home from the full moon rave, those KFC employees who gave me a bucket of chicken for 57 cents when when I was flat broke, the random woman who baptized my daughter in the middle of a bridge in Brooklyn.
It’s been a rough week. But my co-workers and I, who have only known one another for a short while, supported each other with family stories, random photos, internet memes, music videos, jokes, and coffee – little kindnesses that somewhat smoothed the chaos until we were back in the orbit of our families again.
As an old old man, I can gently confirm that the value of relationships lies in quality over quantity, both in number of relationships and in amount of time spent with one another.
Bonding, even briefly, creates something unique that lives beyond the time that it exists, which is why great relationships are so much fun to remember, even if they were only fated to last a little while.
Flights of Better Angels.