Fly Away Home
Thank you to Paula Fung and the Rye Free Reading Room for hosting the third Writes & Bites last week. It was an honor to read alongside such talented, dedicated and honest writers. For those who couldn’t make it, here’s the essay I shared.
It can take traveling halfway around the world to appreciate home. With three young kids, I live in a state of constant motion; moving, making and doing all day but not producing much other than a couple school lunches and a few changes to the to-do list.
My husband, Rich, has the opposite experience. He longs for more time with the kids and fewer business trips pulling him away. I see Rich’s passport with its crumpled, thick pages, filled with stamps from meetings all around the world, and fight back the passport envy. Mine is crisp and clean, sitting in a box with other important documents that rarely see much use. I would gladly fly to Milwaukee and back to go a few hours without the word “MOM” echoing through the house.
A few years ago, Rich and I had one of those rare weekends away without kids. We weren’t alone exactly, as we were meeting twenty of Rich’s colleagues and their spouses in Saint-Tropez, but we had two flights and two kid-free days in a faraway place, a picturesque European beachfront town much like the ones we traveled to in our younger days. It was forty-eight hours, it was France, and it was heaven.
The best part though was the flight home. Rich and I bonded in our efforts to ignore the couple across the aisle, a May/December romance with that fresh new spark. The couple’s love seemed to be based entirely on a mutual enthusiasm for public displays of affection and pushing the liquor limits on an international flight.
From the moment we boarded the plane, it felt necessary to give this couple their privacy. Not only were they indiscreet, despite creative uses of airline blankets, but they were noisy; giggling and chatting between kisses and gropes. Rich and I faced forward and stay seated, unnoticed. I had plenty of reading material, but knowing these eight hours were fleeting, I turned to the in-flight entertainment. I struggled awkwardly with the remote, the seat control, and the food tray, but with the help of my frequent flier husband, I was soon sitting comfortably, scrolling through movie titles.
On my first time through, I scanned for movies I hadn’t seen, but that was a useless way to organize. I had not seen a single one of these movies. I had seen very few movies in the previous year, other than the Lego Movieand Frozen. An entire world of new releases lay before me. What should I pick? What if I make a bad choice? Deep breath. Relax. Do not pick Aloha. I selected my first title and sat back.
In the first film, Big Eyes by Tim Burton, I traveled to San Francisco in the 1960s and learned about Walter and Margaret Keane, artists who somehow escaped my many Art History classes in college. It was a little-known feminist tale of courage, and I love when movies are inspired by a true story. By the end, I was on the edge of my seat. Feeling brave, I took a chance on Hector and the Search for Happiness. I hesitated because it is based on a novel, and I usually prefer to read the book first. Then I pictured the books on my nightstand, a towering list of unread must-reads.
My Saint-Tropez travel bug intensified during this movie as Hector set out on his adventure and I mentally planned vacations, wishing I didn’t have to go home quite yet. I already missed France, with centuries-old houses painted in shades of champagne and rose. I pictured the jellyfish bobbing below the surface of the dark blue Mediterranean water; small, deep red creatures with long, curly tendrils. Even the jellyfish in the south of France were more refined than their mid-Atlantic counterparts. As the movie ended dramatically and Hector went home to his true love, I looked through tear-filled eyes at Rich, sound asleep and unaware of my cinematic journey.
It was time for a laugh, and who better for laughs than Tina Fey and Jason Bateman? That’s how I landed on This is Where I Leave You. The movie was hilarious, but at the heart of the story was a touching portrait of a family that reminded me of my own. Being one of four siblings in a tight-knit family, I wondered how the four of us adults would fare living under one roof for a week in our Pennsylvania hometown. We would make it through with less drama than this family, but not without some level of comedy and tension.
After pausing the movie to write down some notes, I noticed that Rich was awake. He filled me in on the lunchtime shenanigans of the couple across the aisle. They were denied alcohol partway through their meal, having already polished off a handful of Bloody Marys and a few mini-bottles of wine. Appalled by the snooty rejection of the Air France flight attendant, the young woman snuck into the other cabin to charm some unsuspecting gatekeeper of booze. She successfully procured a few small bottles of liquor. Delight and affection continued.
I put my headphones back on and pushed play, expecting more laughs but not expecting what happened next. The youngest brother, Philip, parked his Porsche outside a pizza place in the fictional family’s fictional hometown. I did a double-take, paused the movie, grabbed Rich’s half-hearted attention and pressed rewind.
The sign said Sunrise Pizza. It was our pizza place in our new hometown, Rye. It’s where we took our kids on visits from the city during an extensive house hunt; where we go after swimming lessons at the Y. It might be where I find my misplaced teenagers in years to come. What are the chances that of all the airlines and all the movie choices, I landed on this one? Rye is the town where my kids will grow up and our lives will unfold. This is my family’s story, and it might not be film-worthy, but it is ours.
As the plane touched down at JFK, we collected our belongings as the other couple adjusted their clothing. Three kids, a busy school week and an empty fridge were waiting for me. It was time to go home.