The Seat Guru

Last night I was on a plane back from Milwaukee, packed with cheeseheads (Packers fan) and Orothodox Jews. The Packers had just won and the Orthodox were traveling in large family groups, probably heading to New York for the holidays. I, of course, could not have known this when I book my flight and reserved my seat.

However, that morning, as I was printing out my boarding pass, I did what I always do. I checked the seating chart for the plane. I noticed that I was seated near the front, which I like, but that every seat in the first ten rows was taken. Towards the back there was plenty of room. A red flag went up. "Traveling sports team." "High School field trip."

Not knowing what lay ahead I immediately changed my seat to an empty row, albeit near the back, but one where I felt I had a fighting chance at some peace and quiet with which to work and maybe even a little room to spread out.

My seating needs, however, are always quite specific. An aisel on the right hand side of the plane facing the cockpit in the middle of coach. Why the specificity? Once when I was making this request, the ticket person asked me this same question. In fact, she said, sometimes other people asked for the aisel on the right hand side. Why is that? she wondered.

Because they're left handed, I explained. Left-handed people hate to bump other people. We need to protect our wings (ie. arms, not those of the plane type). As to the middle of coach. Have you ever sat near the bathrooms? Or the galley where the crew chats away all night?

Anyway last night as I approached the gate, I knew I'd made the right move. Dozens of Packers fans, many wearing spongey cheesehead hats were waiting to board. As were the Orthodox Jewish families (I feel it's all right to say this as I am Jewish, but I was very glad not to be sitting at the end of a row amidst a family of say, eight small children.

I was Zone 7, in the back, Row 22. Three seats all to myself and lots of room to grow.

My husband often thinks we are "lucky" when it comes to getting good seats on planes. "Boy, amazing how we got those bulkheads," he said on a trip to France as we traveled with two children. Amazing. I spent quite a bit of time on the phone actually with the airlines before this occurred.

Or he thinks I'm obsessed. Why do I fight so hard to get those two little seats on the side in the middle of coach? He stopped asking that question when once on a flight to Palermo we were in the middle of this time large Sicilian families who all wanted to sit next to one another but solved the problem by shouting across the rows to their family members throughout the flight.

Am I a little claustrophobic? Yes. I can't bear being trapped between two strangers or pressed against a window when I can't escape. And a little obsessive? That was well.

But am I more comfortable when I fly. Definitely. And my husband can attest to this too.

By the way a small travel tip: The Seat Guru is an actual website where you can see the configuration of any plane before you book your seats. I use it ALL the time!!!

After the Quake...

I was going to post soemthing funny today - some anecdotes I've been thinking of, but somehow it didn't seem right. It didn't seem like the time for humor. My mind has been thinking about something else.

For several years now I have taught Haruki Murakami's wonderful collection of linked stories, "After the Quake." The stories all in some way connect back to the Kobe earthquake without exactly evoking it or calling it by name. It is an elegant, thoughtful collection, but one that has also given me pause in the wake of the events of the past week. The 8.9 earthquake, the tsunami, and now, the nuclear meltdown.

It is, as my friend Russell Bank noted on FB today, as if the world we live in has come to resemble Cormac McCarthy's "The Road." I find Japan to be in a darkness we can hardly imagine. To have everything taken from you in seconds. To have 10,000 people literally washed away. To be afraid of the very air you breathe.

In 1993 I traveled to Japan. We stayed in a ryokan in Kyoto. Traveled up to Hokkeido and also went to Hiroshima. I went with a friend who was what is called a hibakshu - a survivor of Hiroshima. As we stood on the Peace Bridge, he told me what he'd seen the day the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. He had a strange, nervous laugh as he desccribes things that no one should ever have to see.

My friend, Mr. Tobita-san, a wonderful translator, is now gone. He suffered, as many survivors did, from a cancer that found him late in his life.

A neighbor called me this morning about something else, then mentioned that her sister was on her way to Japan for a long-planned holiday. My first words were to tell her sister not to go. How can anyone have a holiday amidst so much suffering.

A number of years ago I had been asked by the NYTimes to write a piece about the Big Island of Hawaii. I was thrilled by the assignment and spent several weeks, planning my itinerary, booking at some amazing B&Bs. And then just days before I was to leave 9/11 happened. My Hawaii trip was over a week away but I knew I wouldn't go. I knew I couldn't go.

There are times to travel and have fun, seeing the world. And there are other times when we just have to stop and think about what all of this means. I always loved that old 60th song (was it Joan Baez or Dylan who wrote it). "There but for fortune." Really we just dodged this bullet. It could happen to any of us. Anywhere. Anytime.

During the Storm