I AM SITTING next to a passenger on my MD-88, where the mid flight attendant jumpseat is actually the third seat in a row of passenger seats. Most flight attendants hate to sit here, feeling obligated to talk to passengers who are seated next to them, but I like this seat.
I AM STARING out the window of the sniper’s nest, the vantage point of assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. On that fateful day, November 22, 1963, he aimed his rifle at a man sitting in a car driving past on the street below and shook the world to its very core.
I AM PARTICIPATING in a Habitat for Humanity build in southern India, 3 hours’ drive from Mumbai, in a village called Nagewadi, near a river in a lush jungle. No electricity here, no running water, no paved roads.
I AM WATCHING my luggage circle around the baggage carousel in the Dubai airport with shock and dismay. The handle is partially extended and will not retract, the wheels are skewed and broken, the fabric is torn, my clothes visible through the rip. Delta has destroyed my bag.
I AM CHATTING with a man who is sitting directly across from my jumpseat. He’s older, gentlemanly, speaking in a slow, southern drawl. He asks the usual questions. How long have I been a flight attendant? Where do I fly? How many flights have I flown today?
I AM CHATTING with a man who is sitting directly across from my jumpseat. He’s older, gentlemanly, speaking in a slow, southern drawl. He asks the usual questions. How long have I been a flight attendant? Where do I fly? How many flights have I flown today?
I AM PHOTOGRAPHING three little boys sitting on a concrete wall outside my hotel in Musanze, Rwanda. They are neatly dressed alike in what I assume are school uniforms, white button-down shirts, dark blue pants. They have jaunty white caps perched on their heads. One is wearing a pair of little sunglasses. They look like first or second graders to me, but sometimes it’s hard to tell in Africa.
I AM TAKING a tour to Castel Gandolfo, the summer residence of Pope Benedict XVl. It is July 2011, and I am in Rome for a week. It is hot, sticky, steamy and many places are not air conditioned. Out of breath and sweating, I have been walking all over the Eternal City undeterred, seeing the Coliseum, the Sistine Chapel (he painted this on his BACK?), the catacombs, the Boca de la Veritas.
I AM RIDING in the front seat of Alessandro‘s SUV, driving on a twisting, winding mountain road, barely wide enough for two cars to pass. I close my eyes when a car approaches from the opposite direction. Alessandro and the other driver carefully maneuver their cars and expertly manage the narrow passage. I can’t look. I could never drive on such a road.
I AM FLYING as a passenger tonight from Atlanta, Georgia, to Boston, returning excited and energized from a 2-day company presentation. I am seated next to an ordinary guy in his 40s, kind of scruffy looking, a faint smell of liquor about him. We start talking. A chef in the Merchant Marine, he is returning home from a voyage to China, among other places.