Except for field trips and birthdays, I looked forward to flying more than anything else in my childhood. From the age of 6 months to 14, I flew TWA with my French mother to see my grandmother and aunt who lived in Saint-Paul de Vence, on the French Riviera.
While other kids traveled in station wagons to Disneyworld or the Grand Canyon, we would fly out of Dulles International Airport in suburban Washington, D.C., every three years in the middle of July. When I was a baby, my dad traveled with us, but then it became my younger brother, my mother and me after Dad couldn't come because of a combination of work, cost and in-law allergies.
Upon arrival, I'd enter a magical kingdom of palm trees, cobblestones, funny sirens, mythical creature fountains, Toulouse Lautrec posters and iron gates. Of course, my grandmother and aunt showered me with hugs, kisses and presents.
Days of preparation
I'd count down the days on my Star Wars calendar, and my mother would help me pack my oversize mustard-colored nonwheelie suitcase the Tuesday before our Friday departure. I was the only one looking forward to these trips: My brother got airsick and soaked up our mother's worries of seeing her mother and sister. She probably braced herself against their criticism of her parenting and why I didn't know enough French.
She always treated herself to a "traveling costume" to distinguish herself from our more casual fellow travelers. On our last trip she wore a pumpkin-skirted suit with short sleeves and white sandals; I wore a red polo and khaki pants. We both wore our St. Christopher's medals, to stave away delays, crashes, hijackings and water landings.
I got goose bumps approaching Dulles' futuristic air control tower and terminal, which resembled a Japanese house. Because we also landed at Paris' Charles de Gaulle and Nice Côte d'Azur Airport, I knew Dulles' plane mates (my brother and I called them "funny buses") existed only at our home airport.
You'd leave the ticket counter, walk 200 feet through "security" to wait in a lounge. The plane mate would pull up to the lounge door, you'd inhale the heady scent of diesel fuel, and off you'd bounce five minutes on the mate's fat tires to your plane a mile away. Hydraulic lifts would then connect your mate to the plane, the twin black funnels - designed so pilots can see the plane mates crisscrossing the tarmac - on the roof rising higher and higher like a weary climber almost at the summit.
Happy to see Dad
Getting out of D.C. was almost never a problem for these evening flights, on which my mother never slept. At this time she hadn't become a U.S. citizen so the wait to get back into the country after our trip would sometimes prove torturous.
I'd be so happy to see Dad again as we retrieved our baggage and walked to our Cadillac in the humid August afternoon. No one spoke on the drive home because we'd had all been up for 14 hours; my mother probably hadn't slept the night before. As a parent I can relate to her travel anxieties when we fly to New York to see Keith's family - Daniel didn't used to be the model traveler he is today and Erin at 2 can't sit still in her seat.
Like me at his age, Daniel looks forward to flying and seeing his grandparents, who lavish hugs and experiences on him. Perhaps it wasn't the flying that I looked most forward to after all - it was two women who made me feel safe and unconditionally loved.
