Freedom and Confinement

by | Mar 6, 2016 | life, People, travel, Washington State, winter | 34 comments

photo by Laitche

photo by Laitche

My daughter lives on the other side of the state, four hours away by car. Not a bad drive … except in winter when there’s a good chance of encountering snow and ice on Snoqualmie Pass. So … last week I flew.

I parked at a lot, took their van to the airport, checked my bag, and settled in for some premium people watching.

The TSA line was a good place to start. I got in line behind a man with a kid who looked to be about three years old, a young three and small for his age. What he lacked in size, though, he made up for in energy.

He hopped and skipped in place. He circled his father, testing the two-by-three-foot borders of their place in line. His little legs must have itched to run across the wide-open spaces outside the rope.

Several switchbacks later, we stepped forward and showed our IDs to the TSA person at the podium. Then we split into four separate lines, and I lost track of the father and son.

Who knows where they were going–San Diego, Houston, Boston, Anchorage … They could have been flying to Honolulu or San Juan, Puerto Rico.

And yet, by chance, I ran into them again at my gate. The boy had more room to roam here. But for a race horse like him, the waiting area was a small pasture indeed. Even worse, soon he’d be stuck in a space the size of a human-sized horse trailer.

airplane seatsNo matter how many times you’ve flown, there’s that moment on a plane, after you’ve fastened your seat belt and kicked your bag under the seat in front of you, when you feel trapped.

Then you let it go.

Not so the three year old. His father had shown him to a window seat, two rows up and across the aisle from me. As the other passengers took their seats, the boy began to scream. Angry, frightened. An animal caught in a trap.

Old Chiayi Prison, Taiwan, author: Mk2010

Old Chiayi Prison, Taiwan, author: Mk2010

“No. No. I want my mommy. No belt. No, noooo. Help. Help. Mommy!”

While the plane was filling up, he screamed bloody murder. As we taxied to our assigned runway for take-off, he howled at the top of his lungs.

The woman next to me shook her head. “He wears a car seat in the car, doesn’t he?” And I had to agree. A three-year-old child should be used to wearing a seat belt.

Then we took  off, and I turned my attention to the view: the diminishing airport, the Seattle neighborhoods, Puget Sound, Mount Rainier.

We were climbing into the clouds when it dawned on me that the boy had stopped crying. Now, even though his body was strapped in, his imagination must be flying free.

We pierced the clouds. Flew over mountains, a desert, the great Columbia River, green fields, brown fields, round and rectangular fields. And not a whimper from the boy.

On the ground, on my way to baggage claim, he bounded past me.

“Mommy, Mommy,” he shouted to a smiling woman at the end of the corridor. “I fly-ed in an airplane. I fly-ed in an airplane.”

my signature

34 Comments

  1. livelytwist

    Aw, cute. I’ve forgotten his angry, annoying outburst already!

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      The little boy was so cute in the end. It was easy to forgive the noise.

      Reply
  2. macjam47

    Nicki, that was an enjoyable story. I wonder if the boy was frightened, felt out of control, or was just tired from all the hopping and running around. I can only imagine how the world outside his window seemed to a child so young. It must have been an exciting adventure for him once the plane too off. I can hear the excitement in his voice as he told his mother that he flew in an airplane.

    Reply
    • macjam47

      That was Nicki. So sorry.

      Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Thank you, Michelle. The little boy did capture my attention. Children are such fun. For them, everything is new and exciting. Sometimes frightening.

      Reply
  3. Jill Weatherholt

    What a great story, Nicki, and the perfect ending. I remember the first time I flew, I went into a state of panic when we got into some turbulence.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I was nineteen years old the first time I flew–just a short flight on a sea plane. My first time on a commercial flight was when we moved to the Philippines. Since then, things have changed. My grandchildren all flew as babies.

      Reply
  4. Carol Ferenc

    Fun story with a happy ending. Love this post, Nicki!

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Thank you, Carol. I loved the ending too. I pointed the little boy out to my daughter, who’d come to pick me up. But not having heard him earlier, she wasn’t impressed.

      Reply
  5. roughwighting

    What a sweet story – particularly the ending. Ha Ha. I sympathize with that little boy. I’M that little boy when I enter an airplane. Except I scream silently. 🙂

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      We might be surprised at how many adults “scream silently” when they get on a plane.

      Reply
  6. CrazyChineseFamily

    I am just so glad that our son never showed any fear thus far. Okay he is just two years old but on each plane trip he was rather happy 🙂

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I think when kids start flying at a young age, they take it for granted that everyone flies and so there’s no need to be afraid.

      Reply
  7. Mabel Kwong

    Such a cute boy. Perhaps he had a fear of flying, or he had a fear of being in small spaces. Very nice to hear that he enjoyed the ride and it sounded like he was captivated by the view the whole flight. The dad sounded calm, props to him. Love the binary in the title. The boy certainly felt both at the same time. Wonderful way to phrase it 🙂

    Personally, I hate flying. It triggers motion sickness in me and it doesn’t help that I’m simply afraid of flying 😀

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I’m glad I don’t get motion sick when I fly since I have to do so much of it. Most of the time when I’m in the air I don’t worry. But I’ve been in a few storms that were pretty scary.

      Reply
  8. Constance - Foreign Sanctuary

    A lovely post, Nicki, which brings up a lot of great points!

    I am terrified of flying and sometimes I have my own little silent ‘tantrum’ inside.

    Children have so much life and energy. In Taiwan, some children wear shoes that make a squeaking sound with every step. I remember my Canadian friend and I having a conversation about how annoying they were. And then, his daughter was born and he bought her a pair of those squeaky shoes because, as he pointed out ‘I know where she is at all times and when the squeaking stops, I am worried.’

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I remember seeing (hearing) those squeaky shoes way back in the seventies on little Japanese kids. I also remember when moms tied jingle bells on the laces of their toddlers’ shoes. When I took my three daughters shopping, the first two stayed near me. The youngest had a habit of wandering off. She had no fear of getting lost.

      Reply
  9. suzicate

    Those little ones are full of energy; wish I had half of it! I admit there have been times I’ve felt confined (often within a large crowd!) and only wished I could get away with screaming. I don’t think society would put up with me if I did, ha!

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      Writing this post has made me think about all the times an ordinary person has to put up with confinement. I guess it’s part of life. And maybe it’s good for us. Like poetry. They say being forced to fit an idea into a particular poetic form, a sonnet or a haiku or an ode, can give birth to new ideas. I’m not sure what we gain by being stuck in a small seat on an airplane or crushed in a big crowd. Self-discipline maybe?

      Reply
      • suzicate

        Self discipline or patience…or the art of daydreaming to pass time?

        Reply
  10. autumnashbough

    I like that his dad didn’t put him on a leash. 🙂 I hate seeing kids on leashes in the airport. Though I recognize the necessity, when it is a lone parent traveling with twins.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      My mom admitted that when she went shopping in the city, she put me on a leash because I darted away so fast. She said she got lots of dirty looks.

      Reply
      • autumnashbough

        My parents didn’t leash us. Probably because they were hoping we’d escape.

        Reply
        • Lani

          😀

          Reply
  11. Traveller at heart

    Freedom and confinement! It is such an emotive word on its own. Freedom is taken to a different level when one has experienced confinement. The latter sounds so negative yet one can grow and develop from the experience. Character building, quite!

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      We talk so much about freedom, usually contrasting it with slavery, being in prison, or living under a dictator. But there are so many sometimes unavoidable things that impinge upon our freedom. The biggest ones, I think, are illness and disability. For me, the most frightening example would be the “iron lung” they used to use for victims of polio. iron lung ward

      Reply
      • Traveller at heart

        I totally agreed with you Nicki; illness and disability.

        Further more, the lack of inner peace and or poor mental health can also impinge upon our freedom. The latter can strike anyone. I know highly intelligent people who struggle with poor mental health either due to regular and high consumption of skunk or it is in the family.

        Those ‘iron lungs’ look terrifying.

        Reply
  12. nrhatch

    From “terrified” to “terrific” in a single flight.

    My favorite line: “But for a race horse like him, the waiting area was a small pasture indeed.” Thanks, Nicki.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I did love seeing the boy’s transformation–and watching him race toward his mom.

      Reply
  13. Kate Crimmins

    So innocent. Given my druthers, I’d love to scream in an airplane but they’d just kick me out.

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      The most claustrophobic I’ve felt on a plane was when we moved to the Philippines. Our youngest daughter was three-weeks old; the others were one and three. In those days they had a little bassinet for the baby that attached to the bulkhead in front of me. I didn’t have to hold her the whole time, but I couldn’t move. I had no drop-down table, so I had to figure out how to eat on top of her. Given my druthers, I guess I would have screamed–if I hadn’t already been tamed … I mean socialized.

      Reply
  14. L. Marie

    This was great, Nicki! I wonder if that boy flew for the first time on that flight. Thanks for taking us along. That poor dad had his hands full!

    Reply
    • Nicki Chen

      I’m guessing it was the little boy’s first flight. Taking kids on a plane can be a real challenge. I’ve seen some kids who seem impossible. I sat next to one on a recent flight. And though I usually like to talk to my seatmate, that time I pretended to be extremely fascinated by my book. It was a good move. The child was out of control the whole flight. I felt sorry for the mom, and if I could have helped, I would have. But his disruptive abilities were far greater than my child-whispering skills.

      Reply

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