Identitiy Choice

I know...it sounds etherial and full of bong induced hippie metaphors, but after I finish describing my blog name "plane angel," you too will find it less annoying.

This September I found myself on a plane to europe. I was shaking, my eyes were puffy from crying and I wanted off the plane so badly that I was ready to saw through the double panneled window with the little plastic knife they gave me in my unpalatable vegetarian lump of junk. Ready to address one of my biggest fears, I boarded the plane...alone...and ventured into what I had conjured up to be a month long abyss of roman barbarians and rude parisians with oogling eyes and wandering hands. I looked awful. My palms and pits were sweaty and I had a look of fear on my face like I knew the plane was ending up in the Atlantic. I kept telling myself that I had planned this trip for a good time, memories, pictures to show the grandkids, and maybe a chance to ride a moped like Amelie. I'm supposed to be excited, right?

So there's me by the window, an empty seat in the middle, and the most normal looking 9-5, blue-suit-wearing, comb over business man I've ever seen. We exchanged pleasantries, he assured me the pilot would try his best to keep us out of the ocean and I assured him that, yes, I would be careful traveling through europe alone. Then, in walks the middle seat taker...smelling like he was fresh out of the airport dumpster. I conjured up this image of him waiting at baggage claim for his stolen grocery cart full of the things he needed to succeed as a homeless man in Paris. How did he afford the flight, I wonder? He smiled that polite "I'm sitting beside you for the next eight hours" smile, and closed his eyes for the following three.

I felt movement next to me, so I pulled my nose out of the Paris guidebook I was reading for the hundredth time (trying to make sure I knew how to use the metro!) to smile quickly at my dumpster diving neighbor. He smiled back, with a face full of folding wrinkles and a mouth that boasted the cutest gap between his two front teeth. Next thing I know, he grabs the guidebook out of my hand and points directly to the 14th arrondisement saying, "That is my family, there!" His English was not so good and spoken in an accent that pulled from his French, Italian and Hebrew background. Come to find out, he was no homeless man, but a world traveler who spoke eight languages, had homes in three countries and was on his way to Paris to visit grandchildren for the Jewish High Holy Days. "You come eat with my family. I give you directions to 14th arrondisement. We eat, sing, dance. My nephew show you tour around Paris." We were instant friends.

After some small talk, he leaned so far over me to look out the window, I thought I would have to share my seat with him (this was my very first introduction into the lack of personal space I'd recieve all over Europe). He started pointing wildly at the sunset and its different colors saying "There! See! Above the colors are angels!" Over the next twenty minutes, he explained to me that once you reach a certain elevation in the sky, you can see all the angels. To get me to understand this, he was drawing on paper, moving his hands, trying words in English that didn't quite get his point across. He was so passionate about telling me this, that he must have been mimicking Albert Einstein on the brink of discovery. His breath quickened, his eyes widened. And at that time, I needed comfort in something, so I let him tell me about the beautiful angels that were flying just above our plane, guiding our way.

I don't know what it was about that man, but he gave me exactly the story I needed, delivered in the sweet poetic prose of his broken English. I carried him and his angles with me throughout my trip and on into my daily life. If he could believe that intensely in the angels above our plane, then I could believe in the strength of my own desires to make it through my trip. I called him my plane angel and think about him quite often. May his angels still guide him on all his journeys.