Flying from Philadelphia to London, then on to Hamburg, Germany a month ago was exhausting. Don’t get me wrong for one second: the trip was incredibly wonderful and the return to air travel for me after five years was a true joy. Rich people problem’s I ain’t got and I am tremendously appreciative for the opportunity to go on this adventure.
What I am referring to is the logistics of international air travel and the physical toll it takes. The shopping for things you need prior to your departure, the making sure things are covered at home while you are gone, the packing, the trip to the airport, the checking in, the waiting in lines, the hurried unpacking of the carry-on bag you just so carefully packed, divesting of keys and laptops and tablets, the undressing and dressing and pat down, finding your gate, calculating the perfect timing of the final bathroom trip, the boarding jockeys all determined to get on the plane ahead of you and the other hundred passengers, the waiting, oh, the waiting for those in front of you to stow their bags in the above-most-people’s-heads compartments, attempting to cram everything they cannot live without into a space built for jackets and a box of tissues, settling into your seat after climbing over the person in the aisle seat already buckled in despite the empty middle and window seats next to them and who refuses to get up so our cirque du soleil training will finally be put to good use, the sweatshop environment while all those who were behind you now get to enjoy the full boarding experience as well and the air remains off, the panic when you realize you don’t have a pillow and blanket previously used by possibly hundreds of preceding flyers in greatly varying states of hygiene and yet you still must have one of each, at least, trying to sleep amongst turbulence, crying babies, snoring neighbors, upright positions and not wanting to miss the free alcohol still offered on international flights, the undeniable A-hole with his head in your lap after he catapults himself backward without a glance with complete and utter disregard for your personal space despite the fact you are all part of a community created once you all stepped onto the same tube that will unnaturally propel itself and you into the air and speed hundreds of miles per hour over the 3,000+ miles of the Atlantic Ocean in the dark of night, the inevitable use of the porta-potty in the air since you’re en route for hours, and the ballet it takes to get there, down the aisle after you climb over your rowmate again because they will not pee the entire time just to deny you the opportunity to have free and clear access to a leg stretch and bladder relief, strategic walking on an incline or decline down the aisle to the lavatory (an airplane being the only place left that calls it this) while dodging arms, legs, feet, backpacks, discarded pillows and blankets everyone would have traded a kidney for an hour ago, timing your entrance onto this obstacle course to avoid the beverage cart (called “trolley” on this particular British Airways flight) and, finally, the deboarding which is a repeat performance of people in a my-life-depends-on-it hurry to go nowhere fast.
After a hectic but fantastic six days in Germany, I found myself back at the airport for the return home, exhausted from the week’s events and the time difference. And in that moment, standing at my gate, hearing the sounds of a busy international airport, I had an overwhelming realization. We know what it takes for us to travel to and from Europe in this modern and technology age. HOW IN THE HELL DID OUR ANCESTORS DO IT???
Many were too poor to pay for their passage and indentured themselves to the wealthy, selling their services for a period of years in return for the price of their crossing. They left their homeland, their families: their parents, their children, their spouses, their livelihood, their home to come to a country where they had no job, no place to live, no money and most likely knew no one in the United States. And all of this is not even the actual journey.
They were crammed into very close quarters, defenseless against the whims of the sea. They endured hardships unimaginable to us today. Our plane was a double-decker and as my friend and I found our seats on the lower level, I joked that we were in steerage. But I have not one speck,of a clue as to what the people with my blood in their veins suffered so that I could fly back from whence they came several lifetimes later. Above, the longest paragraph ever written on this blog,documents my recent travel overseas while the conditions that my ancestors faced is a mere few sentences. My ignorance of their experience is as vast as the ocean they sailed. But as I boarded the plane to come home it felt like a magic carpet in comparison and I wondered if they had thought about their future descendants as they made their long voyag. Although I don’t know how they did it, I was there with them, the smallest of cells existing far beyond their hopes for tomorrow. I believed that somehow, someway, they wee on that flight with me. Second row from the back, humbled and grateful, together we travelled to America.
