Planes and Boats

Oh, hello! My apologies for not dropping by with a few words last week. I was traveling unexpectedly and didn’t have the wherewithal to put my thoughts down for you. But I missed you; I can only assume you missed me terribly as well.

Oh, while I have you – a quick announcement that I can no longer keep to myself: I’m working on something new! An e-book about writing! I’m super excited (and only moderately nervous) to show it to you in a few weeks. So, you know…get HYPE!

Guys, I’m awkward when it comes to self-promotion. I’d rather sell vacuums door-to-door. So even this little blurb is a big step for Ashleyne-kind. But I really am excited about this project and can’t wait to hear your thoughts.

Until then, here we are.

So let’s talk about planes and boats, shall we?

I flew from Dallas to Orlando yesterday and sat in the aisle seat next to a woman and her seven-ish-year-old son. (I’m not always the best at judging the age of miniature humans, not having offspring of my own, but I feel confident in saying he was more than five and less than nine.) Although I watched a movie for most of the flight, I did get to hear the boy’s running commentary on what was happening outside the plane while we took off and landed, and I was highly entertained. I also feel very certain that he has already forgotten more about science than I have ever known in my entire life.

As we landed, we were flying through a few thunderstorms, and he took great pride in telling his mother about how clouds work and what lightning does in the sky (it was a bit complicated for me to follow, and his mother was watching a tv show, but the boy seemed very competent so I trust his research.) And then, he started talking about how we are in a metal tube and lightning was flashing around us, and rain pouring down, and then he said this: “You know, if this plane were a different shape, it would be a boat.”

The dreidel of my life seemed to tip over and skitter across the table.

In retrospect, and in recounting the moment to my friends, it sounds like one of those epiphanies you have when you’ve had too many magic mushrooms and you’re five minutes away from hugging everyone in the room and telling them you love them. In other words, I understand if his statement is meaningless to you. And if you think I’m crazy.

I probably am, but that’s neither here nor there.

What I heard when he said that and as I thought about it afterward was this: everything is connected if we let it be.

I’m realizing I still sound high, but I’m going to forge ahead anyway.

Planes and boats are both vehicles of transport but are designed for entirely different circumstances. We have lots of things like this in our lives: cereal and steak, prom dresses and bathrobes, hugs and kisses. And in our society, we delineate them. Cereal is for breakfast, and steak is for dinner. But we don’t have to.

See, this is meaningful to me because I think this is how my brain works, and I finally have a way to describe it. I don’t delineate between everything, and it can cause the world to feel like a slightly confusing place.

For instance, I have frequently thought that someday I will get arrested for driving with an open container of alcohol simply because I forgot that there are situations in which having an open container of alcohol are not appropriate. My brain doesn’t always draw a line between those situations.

And I like that I see the world this way, most of the time. I like that I can eat lasagna for breakfast and use the same foul language in church on Sunday as I do at the gym on Monday. But it does, sometimes, cause issues with those who do delineate.

And I’m not 100% what I will do with this epiphany yet, but I wanted to share it with you and ask you: does your brain delineate between things? And how does that feel to you?

Extra points if you tell me whether you think a plane and a boat are the same thing.