I’m somewhere over Greenland, and the sun will never go down because we’re flying west. I’m always in a heavy state whenever I see Greenland, usually red-eyed and emotionally shredded. Something is starting. Or ending. It’s a landmass associated with transitions and emergencies.
And I still have this foolish anxiety about flying, as if the airplane requires my vigilance to keep it in the sky. I’m better at flying at night, cocooned in some non-space and feeling sleek. In daylight, I’m too aware of being 36,000 feet above the planet, absorbing the judder of 500 miles per hour. A panic attack comes—I need to get off the plane now—and, as always, it goes. As my breath drags back to normal, I look down at the chunked ice in the ocean and consider the shape of my life when I return to the States.
C. and I are going to log some more time in Ohio while we figure out how to settle in the desert later this year, hopefully in the margins of Vegas. My life is weirdly open at the moment: no career, commitments, or clients. Maybe it’s finally time to start writing like it’s my job, at least until I run out of money. This idea inspires another bout of panic, but I try to pretend it’s excitement instead. Watching the ice and clouds scroll past my window, I concoct a routine: at least two hours of longhand writing before looking at a screen, then an hour or two of email and obligations before lunch. Then to the library for editing until five o’clock, when I’ll put my pencil down and go for a run or watch a movie before falling asleep with a book. A simple life. We’ll see how long it lasts.
