Salma in New York (Photo: Robbie Lee)
banal I rarely even register them anymore, suddenly
wearing off quickly. No, a year is definitely not
seem poignant as the taxi speeds me away, the
nothing.
colors of store awnings and sanitation worker
I decide to let myself cry the whole flight long
uniforms and street vendor trucks standing out
if I need to. Or ideally, I’ll be tough and stone- cold
sharply now against the gray sky.
determined if I can manage it. Or I’ll slip into one
Soon I’m waiting at the departure gate at JFK,
of my Zen, play-it-as-it-lays modes, the emotional
leafing through a celebrity gossip magazine I find
holy grail, available to me only in rare flashes
on a chair and trying to think fluffy thoughts: Is
throughout my life. All through the first eight-hour
Jennifer Aniston pregnant, for real this time? Didn’t
flight, and the two-hour layover in Rome, and the
I see this same headline splashed on every gossip
connecting five-hour flight to Beirut, I shuffle
magazine a year ago, two years ago? Seems like
clumsily between the three states. I can’t fall asleep
yesterday. So a year is nothing, then! Right? . . .
even though, incredibly, there’s no screaming baby
I board my flight, spilling coffee on myself as I
try to jam my carry-on into the overhead
and no turbulence on either flight.
All in all, my trip, including the connection in
compartment while juggling a nonfat latte in the
the normally maddening Rome airport, is one of the
other hand. The effects of the gossip mag are
smoothest journeys I’ve ever had, objectively