I fell completely in love with the city and having been to many many cities, this is saying a lot. It was clean and green, with a coast lined with snowy mountains... Beautiful.
I took notebooks full of notes while co-workers went sight seeing, trying to remember everything that was being said during each and every lecture. I relished the chance to learn from other people doing exactly what I am doing since I am the only person in my hospital that does my job and I dont have anyone to really bounce ideas off of...
I walked around the city in the evenings, seeing the sights and meeting my co-workers and bosses for dinner. It was amazing... the perfect combination of all there is to love about Boston with the relaxed, open minded attitude of my current southern California home. I felt like I belonged there in a way that I still don't have for myself in San Diego...
On the flight home I was sad to leave, which is odd for me as I usually leave even the grandest of adventures with a hint of happiness to be headed to home to the familiar.
Not this day...I took deep breaths and pictures, counting down the hours and when I boarded the plane I still wasn't ready to go...
I settled myself in my seat by the window and tried to decide if I should post my departure on my long since abandoned Face book page, knowing what the impending onslaught of questions and passive aggressive slights about going to Seattle "instead of visiting home" from people back in Boston would look like...
I decided against it and kept the pictures stored in my phone and in my heart as the flight attendant told us to turn off "all electronic devices" and pay attention to their aisle way production of "How to survive a plane crash."
We had been airborne for about 15 min, the man sitting next to me sleeping soundly, when the man on the end asked me what book I was reading...
It was a collection of stories written by people who had worked in the sex industry in one form or another and I had been hiding the cover to avoid offending anyone or having to answer this very question.. He laughed when I showed him and we segued into talking about social work, social justice, and literature, which he teaches along with creative writing and rhetoric at a University in Seattle...
Our conversation lasted the entire flight.
He was an interesting blend of awkward charm and intellect that seemed to get my sarcasm and quirkiness... It was an fabulously easy dialogue, we never ran out of things to talk about and he was beyond intelligent..
We each shared the highlight real of our lives and somehow I ended up telling him about my fears of flying and aliens which are generally conversations that happen much later, if ever. He was comfortable enough to pick on me and I was comfortable enough to let him...
The turbulence was awful for the last 30 minutes or so of the flight, though I heard him talking Im not entirely sure of anything he said but he reached across the man sleeping in the middle seat to rest his hand on mine and try to reassure me... Normally I have to take something to fly but since this was just about a 3 hour flight and I had to drive myself home from the air port, I didnt.
Trust me when I say that at 15,000 feet or so in the air going hundreds of miles an hour as the ground gets closer and closer... it is simply not possible to reassure me. In fact I find it amazing that I am repeatedly able to be convinced to sit in a metal tube and hurl myself through the skies at all...But I digress...
Once safely on the ground, my wits returning, I turned on my phone and began putting my stuff back into my back pack...I made my way off the plane and found the professor waiting for me at the end of the walkway...
We walked to baggage claim together and on the way he began apologizing for not being of more help to me during the flight. He said he understood how I felt because HE has a debilitating fear of flying and had not been on a plane since 2005! I felt awful... All I could do was hope that the hours of time spent chatting and reassuring me, served to help calm himself some too..
We got on the escalator down to our bags, still talking and he handed me a slip of paper with his name, number and email address on it... He rambled nervously about how he knows it may be odd to give me his information without getting mine and he how he didn't want to make me uncomfortable but that he found me and our conversation interesting and wanted it to continue if I was interested. He then became apologetic and I realized he was still holding the paper and I hadn't actually taken it from him...
When we got to the bottom of the escalator he was still rambling... I took the paper and quickly explained that it wasn't weird but..... I was also afraid of escalators...
Sigh..
The poor guy. Stuck sitting by a crazy person who only got crazier as the night wore on...
As soon as the words left my mouth I figured he would take back his information and run for the hills...
He didn't.
Instead we walked to pick up our bags where his friends and parents were waiting for him and he introduced me as the girl who helped him get through his first flight in seven years, and they all smiled, thanked me and introduced themselves...
He said he will be back in San Diego in June to see his family and that he would like to keep in touch...
We said good bye as I went to catch a cab...
Now the question:
Do I write to him or simply let it remain a cute story I can use to make small talk and blog entries?
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