Shallow Money Trench

Planes inevitably remind me how much I like living. I’m not actually a nervous flyer. Being up high is still as exciting as I’ve always found it. Watching patchwork farmland and wormlike rivers drift by inspires a certain sense of wonder I can’t quite acheive below clouds. But there is the undeniable fact that only a few inches of manmade material separate my flesh from open sky, and that makes me appreciate, well, pretty much everything.

Airport bars are one of my favorite functions of semi-frequent travel. Usually it’s men traveling solo who are lined up at the glossy wooden counter, knocking back a beer or three. Sometimes there are boisterous pseudo-bachelors on their monthly bro-trip (Tigers vs. Yankees at Yankee Stadium) or the businessman from DC who orders a Cobb salad and four glasses of merlot and tells me about the time United put him up in a hotel and he was later accosted at the hotel bar by a feather-hatted pimp with four of his women.

Even better is the fact that most of this time is spent not talking, but sipping on a beer, reading a book, and listening to the conversation around me. Eyes will meet every so often and we’ll share a laugh or two, as strangers in proximity are wont to do, but for the most part everyone respects bubbles and stays in their own.

Today I found my attention pulled from my David Sedaris book, as the man next to me made three phone calls and chatted with four people. The first call was to his father, the second to a business partner, and the third to what I assume was his house, since he spoke first to his son and then to his wife.

Maybe it’s because I’m also reading a (great) book called The Social Animal, but I was completely enthralled by the shift in his demeanor with each conversation. He was familiar, a bit cranky, but ultimately loving with his father, making sure to repeat his travel itinerary twice and to reassure him that there was no worry about the upcoming weekend plans.

On the second call, he sat up straighter and used longer words for a shorter conversation. After that he munched on some fries. 

On the third call, his voice went up an octave and spoke of pure happiness. He was talking to his kid, and I found it surprisingly sweet, considering all my ovaries want are Grammys. I didn’t pick up on the details, but there was something about granting permission to play with special coins on the dresser, and that he was very much looking forward to being home soon. The man next to me, slightly overweight and wearing a lightweight dress shirt, grinned into the phone.

He talked the longest with his wife, chatting amiably about this and that. He shared some details from his trip, they chuckled several times, and though they didn’t end the call with any form of “I love you,” it was there anyway.

I like traveling because it amplifies the charms of humanity. Maybe it’s sad, in a way, to need anonymous strangers to make me feel closer to people, but I do.

We’ve passed countless towns below already, amber spots glowing out of dark nothingness, and it kind of just makes me happy that most people everywhere are softhearted idiots who make mistakes all the time. We generally try to be good, and it’s an easy truth to come across when watching a high volume of people.

Moving through time zones brings about appreciation. 

oh god, I have a blog?

There is a man at the gym who I can conclude either:

a) takes regular naps in the same lounge chair by the indoor pool every day

b) is dead

c) is entirely a creation of my imagination

and somehow none of these possibilities seem any weirder than the other.

My life is one long lesson in how to give less of a shit about things that don’t matter and more of a shit about the things that do. 

“As a young cellist I had played to an audience that had included Pablo Casals and reacted with poor, nervous playing. Casals sought me out after the concert and praised me highly, somewhat easing the pain and thinking him a very kind man.

Years later I again ran into Casals and thanked him for being kind to a very nervous kid. Angry, he rushed to the cello. “Listen!” He played a phrase from the Beethoven sonata. “Didn’t you play this fingering? It was novel to me. It was good. And here, didn’t you attack that passage with an upbow, like this?” He went through Schumann and Bach, emphasizing all he liked that I had done.

“And for the rest,” he said passionately, “leave it to the ignorant and stupid, who judge by counting only the faults. I can be grateful, and so must you be, for even one note, one wonderful phrase.”

I left with the feeling of having been with a great artist and friend.”

-Gregor Piatigorsky

“I hope this is real.”

“I don’t know what those black squiggly lines mean.”

“Does that note exist for you?”

“PUT SOME MAD CELLO ON THIS BITCH PLEASE.”

“…but seriously, is that physically possible?”