LETTERS FROM HOME: KISSING THE EARTH AFTER A JOURNEY INTO THE HIGH-ALTITUDE UNKNOWN

Oct. 21, 1999

Dear Leslie,

On our vacation in paradise, DC dreamed that the top of her head had been cut off. She remembered reaching up in her sleep to check and feeling only brains. What could it mean? she wondered.

She was still wondering on the plane home when we both noticed the popping sensation in our ears that can accompany changes in altitude. Then the exit lights flashed on, and the oxygen masks the stewardesses had vainly tried to interest the passengers in before the flight flopped into the laps of 200 disbelieving people.

The first officer came on the intercom to tell us to put on the masks and promised he would tell us what was going on as soon as the captain told him. I wonder how many others at that moment had a sinking feeling familiar from school. Here was a big pop quiz, and you hadn't studied.

For not knowing whether they might momentarily spiral thousands of feet to the ground, the passengers were outwardly calm. Some even went back to reading their magazines, though I suspect that much cool was feigned.

Sitting oxygen-masked together in a rocketing tube high over the earth, for all we knew our salvation flowed through those tubes that ran heavenward.

I grabbed DC's hand and she squeezed the blood from mine for a few seconds while fumbling with her other hand for the placard that explains how the oxygen masks work.

The first officer's voice came on the intercom again to tell us a sudden loss of cabin pressure had triggered the oxygen masks. He assured us the faintly frictional odor we smelled was made by the oxygen canisters and was nothing to worry about.

DC and I tried to talk but the masks muffled our words. We just held onto each other as we felt the plane losing altitude.

DC later said she prayed. Not to be spared. For peace, she said.

During the vacation, I had been reading a travel book about personal transformations that have occurred during travel. One story by a woman who says the line between visible and the invisible sometimes disappears for her recounts a visit by a spirit who wants her to pray more because most people have stopped praying.

And do not pray small and needy prayers, the spirit told her.

"Pray hard and big and fill this world with light so that when the skies crack open and the earth cracks open, the prayers fill in the cracks and darkness cannot seep in."

Pray prayers of gratitude for the sun, the rain, for each new day, each new purpose.

When DC thought about the possibility of dying she realized she did not fear it. DC, who screams at shadows and won't even look at a roller coaster, somehow knew everything would be OK no matter what happened.

She likened the feeling to a Chekhov play in which some lost souls can hear bombers approaching and must decide whether to stay in their house or to run for a shelter. They stay, choosing the freedom of release from fear.

As it happens, the house is spared and the shelter is bombed.

I spent the half hour feeling as alive as I've ever felt, reminded that the journey into life's unknowns is supposed to be thrilling.

The voice of the first officer came on again. We had descended to 10,000 feet and the cabin pressure was being maintained manually. We could breathe on our own again.

Now that we could talk, old words of renewed love for each other passed between DC and me. Toward the front of the plane, people were taking pictures of each other, documenting the moment.

Finally the captain came on the intercom. He said the plane was being diverted to nearby Kansas City because flying at this lower altitude requires more fuel. He estimated we'd arrive in about 20 minutes. "The weather in Kansas City is (pause) ... good," he said. "About 55 degrees."

At Kansas City the weather was cloudy. Fire trucks and emergency crews lined the runway awaiting our arrival. The exit lights blinked back on. As the tires kissed the earth, some people applauded. DC had kept her head.

Love, Sam