mile cry club

by SAMANTHA PARADISO

At this time, we ask that you please unload your

emotional baggage as we prepare for take-off.

layout XANDRIA HERNANDEZ photographer MADI SHAFFER stylist MADEE FELTNER hmua AMBER BRAY model ANTONIO DORANTES

Icry … A lot. I cry a lot. I cry a lot on airplanes. A vehicle for the physical plane, a vessel for my emotional turmoil; flying for me has served more than a transportational purpose. I found myself coming of age at the Tocumen Airport in Panama City. I can trace their floor plan as if it were the back of my hand. Joy, giddiness, excitement, desperation, longing, heartache — these are all emotions I’ve traversed across the Atlantic ocean. I collect passport stamps as if they were family heirlooms, each one further spaced out than the last. Pages with ink-filled borders that once resembled a Rorschach test now stare blankly back at me, I back at it. And I consider all the lost time, missed birthdays, absent milestones.

Sometimes life is best left to cheap gas station calling cards. I’ve never been good at goodbyes — unoriginal, I know. Ending a phone call is easier than acknowledging, face to face, that our time together has come to an end. The months between my visits are longer than the visits themselves. And as the days approach for my departure, I find it difficult to enjoy my family’s company because I know this is only temporary. The Morning of Mourning arrives, and I’m ushered to the airport by my great grandmother, grandmother, aunts, uncles, and cousins: unintentional pallbearers in my deliverance. I take one last glance before walking through security, knowing that the next time I see them, they’ll be much older, and I, none the wiser. A few grays turn into a full head of white; wrinkles draping kind eyes deepen; a once quick pace now aches and groans with each step. Sitting in my seat, I run my fingers across the plexiglass window, keenly aware of this closing chapter, “The End” printed on my boarding pass.

There is something melancholy about being on an airplane. As a child, the excitement of waking up early in the morning and driving along an empty highway would entice me. I got to embark on an adventure as the city slept, and in that moment, it felt like every passing building was holding its breath in anticipation for me. That momentary suspension no longer delights me. It fills me with dread because they know, and I know that this joy is short-lived. The seconds turn into minutes, then into hours, then into days. And as soon as I sit down in my grandmother’s living room, I am once again boarding the plane. I’ve been flying since before I knew how to tie my shoes; bunnies running around and under trees was all too complicated for me, but disembarking a plane and finding my way to customs was my mastery.

I fly the same way that I’ve spent most of my life: alone. There are only three instances in which I flew with my mother. At birth, at the exchange, at her interment. The holy trinity of my grief. Perhaps as a means to connect me to our culture, or maybe to develop my relationship with my family, my mother sent me to live with my grandmother as a child. Seven years later, I returned the favor in delivering her back to the mountains of Santa Fe, her dying wish. The unnatural cycle of a child going before a parent. Every year thereafter, my family ceremoniously travels from province through province to make it to the village where it all began. Paying homage, we whisper prayers as we brush a fresh coat of paint onto her sunbleached grave. And when it all becomes too much, I make my way to the back of the cemetery and peer over the lush valleys of the countryside. The breeze crosses and clashes together, the trees and their leaves talk to each other, and I cry. I close my eyes and outstretch my arms, and I’m taken back to my mother’s burial. The unforgiving sun casting down on our grief, unwilling in granting our family a moment’s privacy. The hot earth yielding at our feet, steaming tears sizzling on the baked clay. My great grandmother bracing herself on a tree as she howls, retching her sorrows away. Her piercing screams resonate in my ears — only to realize they’re my own. Each guttural wail louder than the last leaves me feeling lighter and lighter. Palms overhead, arms for wings, I spiral into the grassy knolls, reveling in all that was and is. Slicing through the air, lush, dense, verdant scenery escapes me, as does my past, present, and future. Reminiscing in all the what-ifs and could-have-beens. Could-haves, would-haves, and shouldhaves escort me down the mountain planes, finally plunging me into my seat on flight UA1919. Passengers doze off around me, and I’m faced with acknowledging my family lineage has been reduced to a single plane

seat. There is no bellowing on this flight; my grieving is silent and resigned. Row after row of strangers, each is a witness to my plight. To them, I’m only that girl who cried flying coach. There is no interest nor understanding, just a mutual agreement from those around to pay no mind to the weepy passenger in seat 27A. Complicit in my vulnerability, there is no uncomfortable aftermath, each of us making our way to our respective destinations upon landing. “Fasten seatbelt” lights shut off, and people disperse; hastily reaching for luggage above and below, my spectators retire as the grand drape descends upon the proscenium of my longing. By the time they reach customs, their minds will have wandered elsewhere, my spectacle long forgotten. Involuntary voyeurs, they remain nameless. As do I.

I find comfort in this anonymity. As a child, I’d excitedly make my way through baggage claim and run through those final double doors and into my mother’s arms. Exhausted, my mother would hold me, run her fingers through my hair, and remark on how tan my skin was, how I’d grown a centimeter or two. I’d press my forehead on the car window, drowsily recounting my trip while holding hands, her thumb caressing my palm. Today it’s only me; silence and serenity take a backseat as the passing buildings meld and merge together in my rearview window. The drive is quiet, leaving only the lulling white noise of the tire-on-pavement present. I stand at the doorway looking at my dark empty apartment, wondering what it would be like to come home to someone. Exhausted with no one to hold me this time around, I collapse onto my bed with a sense of tranquil resignation. Slowly drifting to sleep, my gaze falls on my unopened suitcases, reconciling I’ve unpacked my grief before my own luggage. ■