going places gives me something to do. it’s too cold to shower: there’s no light yet and everything is freezing. it’s not much warmer in the next place. i know because i checked. it will barely break fifty at high noon, even in the desert. on the way out of zacatecas, the plane banks sharply on take-off. on every tray table juice slides softly in paper cups. a flight attendant on vacation recognizes me from a trip to germany. she asks how my mom is and i smile, yes, yes, all’s well. a little bit of color makes me healthy, feels good, so i stay south for the winter. on the plane to tucupita are some women dressed in formal, sturdy black. their grief is terrifying; an unexpected death. somebody young. i remember mourning and the heat. that was a different day, a different place. you get a real good feel for a place coming in over it. here is just a swamp. they built a long, central road on a high ridge — a promise for dry land that was never fulfilled. there are twelve hours until the next departing flight. somebody recommends the isle de margarita and directs me to a single engine island hopper. the next one is full but a man in a sport coat offers me his wife’s seat. she’s no longer coming. i’m the only woman on board, the other half-dozen are tourists and fishermen, two of them. the sport coat lends me a book. “you’ll fly right through it, i promise, a few hours, a day, tops.” after the island i fly in constant night for over forty eight hours, taking off for a new timezone whenever day threatens to break. these are the things that really happened. this is my life, and i choose to live it. every day is a new way to impress somebody you just met. lose an hour, gain more. charm a stewardess. a free bottle of champagne because she thinks you’re so polite. she used to fly turns to Tokyo in ‘92, too, so hell, maybe she even met your mother once. the next day, you’ll get over it. there are no evergreen tragedies. he loved her who loved him who died who left behind two children too young to remember. you were older, you remember. three days lost at the foot of a bed, curled head-to-foot with your best friend on some chairs pushed together, because it’s her father. you were the last one to see him alive. three days on an airplane are nothing in comparison. hell, not even three months. do you know how close commercial jets in flight will pass to one another? the law says 1,000 vertical feet. one right under the other, quiet and serene as disinterested lizards. the plane takes off, the sun rises on the right wing. there is time. endless, endless time.
