Buffering Read online

  But achieving a sense of inner peace is real. It’s out there. You just have to be willing to walk past the darkness, and even past the light, to find it.

  1 Julianne, Maria, if you guys are reading this book, well, the truth is that I was always trying to make out with one of you. Maybe both of you?

  2 KJ Paul is a karaoke jockey. Yes, this is a real and awesome thing. He ruled.

  3 I love karaoke more than any other sport. And karaoke is a sport, by the way. Makes you sweaty, increases your heart rate, pumps you full of endorphins. If that’s not a sport, then I don’t know what is.

  4 A person needs to bring 1.5 gallons of water per day to Burning Man.

  5 That’s the reverse order of my terrible sunburn.

  6 Check it out if you get the chance: YouTube.com/Harto. :D

  7 Like really, really good. Wink.

  8 AKA I forgot what the name was.

  9 Forgive me! I was young! And foolish! And appropriating culture!

  10 Like “Camp” = “Companion”! Also I JUST CAME UP WITH THAT AND FEEL SO PROUD OF MYSELF!

  11 Who needs names?

  12 For the real comedown, see the chapter “Casual Travel Asshole.”

  13 They were umbrellas with Christmas lights attached.

  CASUAL TRAVEL ASSHOLE

  I spend a lot of time on planes. So much that I’ve taken to calling myself a Casual Travel Asshole. What is a Casual Travel Asshole? Well, it’s someone who takes their travel plans casually but seriously. And insists on telling everyone around them about all the minor ways that they, too, could improve their travel experience! That’s where the asshole part comes in. Because apparently some people feel “judged” when you observe and offer feedback without it being requested. But I just can’t help myself! Knowledge is meant to be shared! For example, if I’ve discovered that buying a liter of water preflight and making sure to finish it by the end of any flight three hours or longer is a surefire way to stay hydrated . . . shouldn’t I tell everyone I know? Or that life is so much easier when you keep all your charged electronics in one bag? And to keep that bag in your backpack (never checked) just in case your flight is delayed?

  That’s not all. Once I heard that flight attendants put Neosporin in their nostrils to keep from getting sick . . . let’s do that, too! Nose goop for everyone!

  I’m so vocal about my tested methods of travel comfort because I think everyone deserves a comfortable travel experience. Flying doesn’t have to be miserable! There are measures you can take to make sure you’re not sitting in a self-induced stress tank for the duration of your time in the sky.

  Here are some of my tips and tricks:

  1. Think of your luggage and your backpack as two separate items with two separate purposes. Luggage = things you’ll need during your trip. Backpack = things you’ll need during your flight. Think of your carry-on as your in-flight toolkit. What needs to be in there for the next three hours? Deodorant? Gum? A copy of Buffering: Unshared Tales of a Life Fully Loaded? Only carry the essentials.

  2. Charge your devices before your flight. These are the stresses that we can avoid, people! A dying phone battery is one of them. It’s still a good idea to pack your chargers in your backpack, though.

  3. Cater to your senses! Flying is a whole-body experience. We have a tendency to think only about visual ways to entertain ourselves (books, laptops, games, and so on), but what about the other parts of your bod? Smell, sound, taste, and touch? Keeping the senses happy is equally important on your journey! And Lord knows that an ill-timed fart from the person sitting next to you can turn minutes into hours and hours into days. But you can be prepared! Here’s what I do:

  SMELL: As someone with a sensitive little nose, bad smells on a plane drive me up a wall. Like the guy next to you who sleeps with his mouth wide open as you try not to think about his warm dank breath gently penetrating your airspace. Good god, how I wish that guy had drunk more water today.1

  CASUAL TRAVEL ASSHOLE SAYS: Carry some eucalyptus balm with you on the plane, and if something near you is invading your senses, just rub it under your nose. Peppermint oil also works great for this, but it kind of burns, so don’t put it directly on the skin under your nose.

  SOUND: Babies crying, humans talking, etc. If you’re noise sensitive or just wanting to zen out on a plane, sounds can really aggravate. Especially when you’re listening to people behind you discuss their political beliefs while you’re flying to St. Louis to speak at a college and you just wanna turn around and ask them some very basic questions about where all their anger and hate comes from.

  CASUAL TRAVEL ASSHOLE SAYS: Use earplugs. Or if you’re fancy, get some noise-canceling headphones. But those things make me feel like I have motion sickness for some reason, so I avoid them. I like earplugs since they’re so cheap! And also fun and squishy. Plus, if you buy a pack and stick them in your travel bag, you’ll have a backup plan when you lose your fancy headphones. Set yourself up for success, homie!

  TASTE: Speaking of motion sickness, do you get queasy during takeoff and landing? Are you someone who finds airplane dining options either unsatisfying or costly or both? Same. My hunger is a precious gift. I can’t waste it on those sad substitutes.2

  CASUAL TRAVEL ASSHOLE SAYS: Oranges are great! Not only do they smell nice and taste delicious, peeling them is a nice little activity to pass the time. Plus the people around you will say “That smells so nice!” For the nausea, though, bring some minty stuff. Gum not only helps with the ear-popping during pressure changes but also soothes the tum.

  TOUCH: Do you feel gross and grimy when you arrive at your destination? As though your body has somehow become a wasteland of oily filth? As though your hands have never been clean before and never will be again? Also your armpits? Also your neighbor’s armpits?

  CASUAL TRAVEL ASSHOLE SAYS: Baby wipes, yo! Or makeup wipes! Or specifically butt wipes! Stick a pack of wipes in your backpack and give yourself a quick once-over in the bathroom before you land. It will make you feel SO MUCH BETTER. Planes always make me feel like I’m a Sasquatch, and since I’ve starting wiping my face (and reapplying moisturizer) during a flight—well, I just feel like it’s the dawn of a brand-new day. Wipe your ears, too, for an extra-special wake-up kick!

  Now, it’s not that flying is always a delight when you heed these tips. I’m still not always in a happy place when I get on and off a plane. But they do help. Before I started doing these things I found myself prone to almost constant internal complaints3 and panic attacks. Even when flying in first class! I know, I know, unbelievable, right? What right do I have to complain about luxury accommodations? Well, here’s the thing: if you’re the type of person who is logging internal complaints 99 percent of the time, it’s not actually about the outside circumstances, it’s about your internal head space. Think about it . . . what are the odds that you’re actually constantly surrounded by idiots? Or that everyone but you is sooooo inconsiderate? Or that people really move too slowly or that seats are too small or whatever it is that’s contributing to that negative monologue in your head. Guess what? If you’re someone who likes to complain and be negative, ain’t nothing gonna change that but you. Even if you’re in first class.

  Some observations on first class:

  * Sometimes they have glass glasses. Isn’t that nuts? And here I couldn’t take my tweezers through security.

  * People in first are usually less friendly, to be honest. Somehow people up front seem EXTRA aware of any encroachments into their personal space. Meanwhile, as I type this from coach, Mr. Sleepy Mouth Breather and I are basically spooning.

  * The food is way way better. That’s just a fact.

  * Everybody is drinking.

  * Sometimes they can make frothy coffee drinks!!!!!!4

  * Everybody gets blankets and pillows. No questions asked. It could be 2 p.m. on a one-hour flight from LAX to SFO, but there are your blanket and your pillow just in case you need to have a lil snuggle.

  * Oh y
eah, and it costs about ten times as much as coach.

  That’s about all you need to know. You can thank your friendly Casual Travel Asshole. What got me here? What was the turning point where I decided that I just couldn’t stand to be miserable on flights anymore? Especially if I was going to be flying multiple times in a month? Well, many things, but one of the contributing factors was a very scary flight I took from Reno to Colorado.

  SPOILER ALERT: To this day I refuse to connect via the Denver airport.

  I find flying to be terrifying in the same way that most of life can be startling—it’s not the pain itself but it’s the anticipation/expectation of pain that leads fear to be so exhausting for me.

  I find that the closer I get to being the person I want to be and leading the life I wish to lead w/o self-loathing or guilt, I find myself a mix of peace and persistence:

  If this life ends, at least it has been good.

  I don’t want my life to end because I think there is potential for so much good to be given. I want to spread myself around like jam on toast.

  But not in a sexual sort of way. There is just so much to do. Much left to be done.

  Flying is scary. It’s crazy and unnatural. And as someone who was raised to believe that an apocalypse was coming to wipe out the sinners of the earth during my lifetime, flying only got scarier the more I lived out my sinful wretched life (of, ya know, not being a Jehovah’s Witness). In my mind, some sort of catastrophe situation in the sky seemed like a perfect scenario for divine retribution. And I definitely deserved that.5

  And if I was going to die for my sins, there was no time I deserved it more than during my flight back to New York via Denver after my Burning Man trip.

  When I got to the Reno airport I was still riding high after my mind-expanding, judgment-free night in the desert. I boarded my flight and sat down in my seat, aware (but not anxiously self-aware) that I looked a little silly in my dusty Burner clothes. The older couple sitting next to me looked a little hippy-dippy themselves, so we exchanged some pleasant words and settled in for the flight. There was no in-flight entertainment on the plane, which was fine because I had brought a book along that I hadn’t cracked at camp, and I looked forward to the simple and pleasant experience of reading on the flight. After all, I was in a state of impenetrable peace. A peace I would carry with me throughout my whole life, right?

  WRONG.

  I don’t know if it was the weather or the temperature or what, but as soon as we left Reno and started making our way across Nevada, the airplane was bobbing like a boat tethered to the shore. Slow, constant motions that made me immediately nauseous and rendered any reading impossible. I heard people behind me who “didn’t normally get sick on flights” asking the flight attendants when the rocking motions would end because they were starting to get a little sick to their stomachs. I managed to ask for a ginger ale before the captain came on and asked the flight attendants to take their seats for safety. A bone-chilling announcement every time.

  With the flight attendants safely tucked away and no respite from the rocking in sight, I tried taking deep breaths to quell the churning of my stomach. I was covered in a cold sweat and the air coming out of the vent above me was none too refreshing, as it only recycled the panicked panting of the other passengers.

  Then the rocking stopped, or rather it changed. It changed into bumps. Bumpy bumps. Nonstandard bumps that made people gasp aloud at the sudden drops and dips the plane was taking.

  Not me, though. I wasn’t gasping.

  I was too busy clenching my jaws so tightly it almost made my ears ring. My warped thinking at the time was telling me that I had clearly had too much fun on the trip and had felt a little too safe and a little too happy. Plus the drugs I’d done—clearly that warranted punishment.

  My mind was feverishly praying to Jehovah and apologizing for the countless sins and failures of character my life was marred with. I was wretched, and this was how I was going to die. How foolish and selfish for me to think that I could know a sense of peace on Earth when truly the only peace was in the Kingdom of Heaven. Luckily, since I was going to die before the apocalypse, I would have a better chance of being brought into Paradise.

  “Attention passengers. We will be attempting descent into the Denver airport.”

  Attempting descent? What the fuck kind of announcement was that? What other conversations was this pilot having to make him think that he could update us like that and it would be enough?

  I went from a state of anxiety into despair. Who would take care of my family when I was gone? What about my mom? What about Maggie? Oh, Maggie, my angel! My sun! She’d be so sad to lose me! If only I hadn’t been so evil during my lifetime and wasn’t now being wiped off the Earth by heavenly justice!

  That was my loathing-fueled mantra as we began our descent. Or rather our attempted descent, as the air and the plane couldn’t seem to agree on how they were going to work through this together. We circled the airport and tried to descend multiple times, each one equally terrifying and leading me to yet another round of internal flogging for my deviant nature. Eventually the captain came over the intercom to tell us that we had been advised to forgo attempting further entry into the airport. We had been circling in the sky for so long that we were running out of fuel and needed to undergo an emergency refueling via an airport in Nebraska.

  Got it. Emergency refueling. My God.

  In my head I made a plan to call Naomi from whatever airport we made it to in Nebraska to see if she could help me get on another flight, direct back to NYC. I certainly wasn’t getting back onto this doomed death box. A new plane might be my only chance of salvation.

  Before I could finish that thought I realized that we were landing—on dirt. We were landing on a dirt runway.

  The refueling wasn’t taking place at an actual functioning commercial airport, but at this—where were we? In a field? To this day I still don’t know. I can only assume it was some sort of field for private planes. It was very confusing.

  During refueling we were not allowed off the plane, but we could stand and move around the cabin. I immediately stood up and headed for the bathroom, pulling out my phone, which I hadn’t used in the last four days. There was dust from the playa lodged in the cracks, and I scoffed at myself for thinking the experience had been so full. It had been artificial and man-made. Just like this plane. Not like the Kingdom of Heaven, though. I was in full-swing Jehovah’s Witness mind-fuck mode.

  The phone still had a charge, and I called Naomi and was angry and pissy and moody (behaviors from me that she is very used to). I told her about my original plan of finding a new flight and how my original plan couldn’t work now because we weren’t actually at an airport. I was furious.

  “Sounds like a really scary experience, honey. I’m sorry to hear this is happening . . . I’m so glad you’re safe.” Naomi’s soft tone sounded like pity to me and only added to my pit of rage.

  “Safe FOR NOW! We have to go back up and land in Denver still! Also, I’ve totally missed my connection!”

  “Well, if the weather is that bad, sweetheart, I’m sure other planes haven’t left Denver either. You might still be able to make your flight connection. Want to send me your flight info?”

  “Ugh. Fine. Yeah, I guess. Bye.”6 I hung up abruptly before sending the text and shifting my phone into airplane mode, despite the fact that we were still on the ground. I was angry and feeling unreasonable, and I didn’t want to have any further contact. First anger, then guilt, then isolation. That was the only pattern I knew.

  If I had been able to talk about my feelings and understand them better at the time, I might have called Naomi and let myself cry a little. I think a more compassionate version of myself would have understood what I was really feeling and would have said something along the lines of: “I’m really scared on this flight and I don’t know how to comfort myself. I don’t think we were ever taught. Mom’s fears were delusions, and Dad’s answer to everyt
hing is ‘turn to Jehovah.’ But I can’t pray to Jehovah anymore because I’m trying to break free of that mind-controlling doctrine and live my life. I’ve been so happy lately. I think I’m on the right track, but now I’m having this terrifying experience and I don’t know what to do.”

  She would have understood that. Because a lot of that has been her journey, too.

  Instead I huffed back into my seat and sat in dread, waiting for takeoff.

  The hippy-dippy couple next to me was looking at the window and talking about the fields. They were old and tanned and gray, and they seemed so relaxed about sitting on this runway. I couldn’t understand why. So I asked, “Excuse me, do you . . .um . . . fly a lot?”

  The man turned to me smiling and said not really but since they lived in Boulder, Colorado, when they did fly it was usually into and out of Denver.

  “Is it always this bad?”

  “Not always. But sometimes. Just like everything else.”

  We took off again and encountered similar turbulence. That time, the gentleman offered me some advice for coping with feelings of fear. He said that when he got scared he just focused on the feeling of his body in the chair and thought of his breathing and of the air going into and out of his lungs. I didn’t realize it at the time, but he was teaching me how to meditate. It’s a good thing that he didn’t say the word “meditation” because in my mind (at the time) I wasn’t buying into anything that was associated with a higher self. I would have rejected his advice flat out. Only very recently have I started to meditate daily (or at least semidaily) and the difference it has made in my life is immeasurable. I’m telling you, guys, download Headspace! Ten minutes a day! Totally achievable!