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 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.

I AM REMEMBERING my mother on the first Mother’s Day without her. She died six months before and I miss her terribly. Another flight attendant working on my crew recently lost her mother as well and the two of us are sharing stories and reminiscing, smiling and sniffling, wishing we had just one more Mother’s Day to celebrate and honor our sweet mothers.

I AM RIDING in a hotel van with several Delta flight attendants from various flight attendant bases. I know the flight attendants on my crew, but I do not know the others. We all have finished our flights and are heading to the layover hotel, our work day done

I AM DRINKING a cappuccino in the lobby lounge of the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai, the only 7-star hotel in the world. This is no ordinary cappuccino, however. Flakes of real 24k gold sparkle on the foam of my coffee drink. The hotel is splendid, decorated in primary colors of red, blue and yellow with gold accents. It is shaped Iike the sail of a boat, jutting up majestically from the sea. My room has two floors, the sitting room and a bathroom downstairs, the bedroom and another bathroom reached by walking up a wide, curved staircase. Both floors have huge windows overlooking the Dubai marina, the skyline of the city stretching in the distance.