Musings from Up in the Air

            The Delta flight tracker shows that the plane is just crossing the Georgia-South Carolina border as I write, but as I peer out the window to my left (I’m ever thankful to my mother for booking me this window seat), the cloud cover has blanketed any view of the ground I might have—puffy off-white clouds that seem to roll up and down like hills and valleys miles in the sky. I won’t see American soil again until late April. These last few days have been so hectic for me: getting prescriptions, packing, saying goodbye to friends, obtaining my visa, watching crappy Carolina basketball, that I’ve hardly had time to let it sink in that I was actually leaving the States for three and a half months. So when I boarded this plane from Atlanta to Heathrow, I stepped into a hard dose of reality. I texted my mom, as always, to let her know that I was on the plane, but I realized that when the plane lands and I take my phone out, I won’t have service.  I shut off my phone, put away my father’s Kindle that I’m borrowing for the semester, and stared out the window.

I’d determined earlier today that the last song I would listen to stateside would be Crosby & Nash’s “My Country ‘Tis of Thee.” So, as the announcement came to turn off all electronic devices and the creepy red-haired flight attendant who says “Smoking… is NOT allowed” while wagging her finger appeared on screen, I snuck in one last listen. The thing about the Crosby & Nash version of this song is that they take these simple, patriotic verses (“Land where my fathers died / Land of the pilgrim’s pride,” not the most unique poetry out there) strip them bare of all pomp and circumstance, strip them of all suggestion that America is awesome and the greatest country on Earth, and leave a hauntingly personal reminder that, like it or not, this is our homeland. So as I’m listening to this song, by sheer luck I catch in my field of vision an American flag fluttering on a nearby loading dock. And as I’m listening to these lyrics, “Land where my fathers died / Land of the pilgrim’s pride,” I realize that the flag in the distance is my flag, and I’m not going to see it for a few months. I realize that though I’m going to a place that speaks English, though I’m going with two dozen other members of the UNC family, I’m still venturing to a foreign place. I feel unsettled, sure, but also exhilarated and ready. As a young man of twenty, deeply entrenched and comfortable at home and in school, it’s not often that I get the chance to feel so unsettled. It’s been too long since I stepped out of my comfort zone.