“You haven’t seen a tree until you’ve seen its shadow from the sky.” — Amelia Earhart
Some years ago, I was chosen to keynote a very large international conference of about 12,000 people; it would be my largest audience ever. I would share the platform with a colleague I had been working with for a year or two.
We left Washington, DC, on a clear summer day; shortly after takeoff, it became abundantly clear that something was not right. The flight wasn’t following a normal pattern after take-off; our flight attendants were visibly shaking and leafing hurriedly through an emergency manual.
This is not behavior that inspires confidence.
The flight just didn’t feel right; we weren’t making progress in the sky. Something was very wrong, and not like that time I insisted the flight attendant call the pilot back for a little look-see at the wing before taxi and takeoff.
Finally, a voice from the cockpit quietly announced that we were having a tiny bit of a problem and would be returning to the airport. “Problem” and “airplane” are not words I like to hear in close proximity; I wasn’t happy. My colleague was shaky.
A few minutes later, the cockpit voice announced that, well, folks, we’ve experienced a failure of the plane’s hydraulic system and would be returning not to Washington, DC, but to Baltimore’s airport.
Let me stop for a moment to clarify something: the hydraulic system of a plane is very, very important. Crucial, even. Without it, there is no way to turn, go up and down, land – well, you might say that without it, you’re fairly well screwed. In the words of my daughter, Emma, when she had to throw up one time in the car as a young child, “this isn’t going to be good.” In fact, my friend, I knew immediately that it could be very, very bad, that kind of irretrievable badness, the last kind you experience, the surprising – that- it- is- ending- this- way, 11 o’clock- news- kind- of- bad I fear every time I fly.
Sitting up front, my colleague and I had a clear, close view of the panic on the faces and in the voices of the flight attendants, professional though they were.
Because of our tiny hydraulic problem, turning the plane was, well, problematic. Our return to Baltimore took a lifetime, with silent yet palpable panic rising. Baltimore was chosen, I would find out later, so we could crash far away from other planes.
To turn, the pilot had to alternately shut off one engine and boost the other, left, then right, left, then right. To descend, we had to glide down. There was talk of dumping fuel so the explosion on impact wouldn’t be as big. Would it really matter? We were in a slow glide to a fireball; the airport was preparing the runway with foam and a phalanx of emergency vehicles such as I had never seen.
Our slow motion descent took place in total silence, punctuated only by the voice of our most senior flight attendant instructing us repeatedly in assuming the brace position, arms crossed on the seat in front of us, head on arms, with an admonition that as we neared impact, we should immediately assume that position when we heard them yell “NOW!”
As the ground came closer, we were instructed to take off and stow any sharp jewelry and all eyeglasses. I could have done without that instruction, truthfully, and it was then—sightless without my red Mrs. Beasley bifocals—that I began my very small, very quiet, very personal and lonely goodbyes.
It was an odd, weightless feeling, that slow spiral into death. The odds were definitely against us, I realized. I had to quietly will myself to give up the outcome; there was literally nothing I could do but think of my daughters, my husband John, my family, all those things undone, that messy house that the Marshall sisters would need to come clean up before the funeral, the letters unanswered, conversations unhad, all that future gone, those people who were supposed to meet me in their lives, but wouldn’t.
I had a moment of heart-ripping panic and then talked myself quickly into a calm and reassuring space; I willed myself into spending my last moments not in sheer terror, but in gratitude, a conscious reframing of the story I had suddenly been handed. I was determined not to end in fear, but in peace.
One lasting, overwhelming thought that stayed with me during this whole event was a shallow one, but one that told me volumes—I knew in an instant that I did not want to die sitting next to the person beside me, that this is not the person I want to be with, that I didn’t want him to reach out to me for comfort, that I didn’t want to be comforted by him.
I’m not proud of those thoughts, but I paid attention to them; it was my body and heart and gut talking to me, I’m convinced.
The emergency vehicles and foam should have been a reassuring sight. They were not.
The anxious, loud scream came: “NOW!” and, without a sound, we all braced. (Truly, is that brace position just to give people something to do, a bow to a prayer position? I can’t imagine it saves lives…)
We hit, we lived.
It was the talk of the airport. We lived! We survived! Everyone called home!
Rebooked on a later flight—oh, joy!—we went to a coffee shop to regroup. It was a clarifying moment, another chance, a time to assess. It was—as Rilke says—time to change your life. “Well,” I said to my colleague who had been visibly shaken at 37,000 feet, “how does this change your life? What does this mean to you? What will you do differently with this second chance?”
“All I know,” he said without hesitation, “is that if I’ve missed my time at the hotel pool because of this, I’m going to be pissed.”
I blinked several times, very slowly.
My mid-air gut reaction had been right; this is not the person I want to die with, work with, be with.
We show ourselves in moments of system failure and panic and change and difficulty and crash-landings, not calm. Does true self emerge only (or especially?) when tested? Lessons about others come, perhaps, from their response to great fear or significant peril or the opportunity for sacrifice either taken or not. My colleague had failed that test before, but it was this final failing grade that made it clear: I could no longer work with him. He got his pool time; we gave our speech. I walked off that stage and never worked with him again. I knew I needed different seatmates for the rest of my flight.
~*~ 37 Days: Do it Now Challenge ~*~
On this flight we call life, choose your seatmates wisely. Sit with people you would embrace while going down, who won’t hog the armrest or steal your peanuts or take your in-flight magazine. Sit instead with people who will comfort you when you’re scared, who you would take off your sharp jewelry and glasses for, who you would give up your time at the pool for.
Remember, “you haven’t seen a tree until you’ve seen its shadow from the sky.”
Some years ago, I was chosen to keynote a very large international conference of about 12,000 people; it would be my largest audience ever. I would share the platform with a colleague I had been working with for a year or two.
Let me stop for a moment to clarify something: the hydraulic system of a plane is very, very important. Crucial, even. Without it, there is no way to turn, go up and down, land – well, you might say that without it, you’re fairly well screwed. In the words of my daughter, Emma, when she had to throw up one time in the car as a young child, “this isn’t going to be good.” In fact, my friend, I knew immediately that it could be very, very bad, that kind of irretrievable badness, the last kind you experience, the surprising – that- it- is- ending- this- way, 11 o’clock- news- kind- of- bad I fear every time I fly.
Our slow motion descent took place in total silence, punctuated only by the voice of our most senior flight attendant instructing us repeatedly in assuming the brace position, arms crossed on the seat in front of us, head on arms, with an admonition that as we neared impact, we should immediately assume that position when we heard them yell “NOW!”
I had a moment of heart-ripping panic and then talked myself quickly into a calm and reassuring space; I willed myself into spending my last moments not in sheer terror, but in gratitude, a conscious reframing of the story I had suddenly been handed. I was determined not to end in fear, but in peace.
It was the talk of the airport. We lived! We survived! Everyone called home!
On this flight we call life, choose your seatmates wisely. Sit with people you would embrace while going down, who won’t hog the armrest or steal your peanuts or take your in-flight magazine. Sit instead with people who will comfort you when you’re scared, who you would take off your sharp jewelry and glasses for, who you would give up your time at the pool for. 
