BALANCE
FLYING WHILE
FALLING
Blood. The tangy, iron
flavor trickled from my
lower lip, chewed raw in a
futile attempt to maintain
composure. “Be calm,”
I admonished myself,
focusing on counting the
waving cypress trees in the
distance. “Breathe. Téa, pull
it together.”
From the gap between
the window and the seat in
front of me peered a pair
of dark, saucer-sized eyes.
A three-year-old boy—the
same child from the security
line, in fact—was watching
my difficulty breathing with
curiosity. His naïve gaze
bore into me the same way
it had when I bid farewell to
two, dear friends whom I call
“aunt” and “uncle”. Peeking
from behind his mother’s
legs, the boy had watched
our long, tearful, swaying
embraces with unwavering
fascination, as if he had
never seen adults cry.
“Ciao,” he now called,
thrusting his olive-toned
hand through the gap.
“Ciaoooo.” He pushed his
chin and mouth through the
space, too.
“Ciao, mimmo,” I
responded, happy that my
voice was normal. “Pronti?”
Are you ready? Withdrawing
his arm, he grinned a
dimpled smile before
wriggling with eagerness and
facing the front.
As we started hurtling
forward at 180 miles per
hour, the smiling faces of
those I was leaving swam
before my eyes—my family
and the children who would
grow in my absence, friends
whose daily lives I could not
be a part of, and even myself,
for the person I grew to be
who would inevitably change
“
Nostalgia for
the moments
when loved
ones were not
separated by
land, sea and
time hit like a
tidal wave.
”
from this point on. Nostalgia
for the moments when loved
ones were not separated by