Plane Trips

Well I embark on my world travel tomorrow and I can’t help but think of my first time on a plane. I was a very young child and a member of a national performance team. It was 1979 and we performed a football halftime show in Miami, Florida. We performed at Disneyworld too during the trip. The trip was expensive and coincided with the detection of skin cancer on my mother’s face. Therefore she sent me another family. The performance was fabulous (I was great), I was the youngest member and super cute and received a lot of attention from the crowd. I have always liked being the center of attention. I do remember getting stranded in the Denver airport but I don’t think it was for too long.

One of my strongest memory was I felt that the other family “stole” my money. They made me pay for my portion of a taxi when we missed the bus even though it was their daughter that made us late. The taxi ride was super expensive and took a large fraction of my spending cash. I am still upset about it.

The strongest memory I have actually did involve the trip at all but the returning. When I stepped off the plane my mother was there to meet me and she looked terrible. I was so embarrassed; in fact I still have a physical response to the memory. I was very young and did not understand that I was very lucky to have a mother at all, all I knew was my mother showed up at the airport with a hamburger face. She had undergone dermabrasion to remove the skin cancer and part of her nose was removed too. I returned right at the time the bandages came off and she showed up looking like hell. I don’t have the time to explain how bad she looked and how embarrassed I was, but road rash does not give credit to the state of her face. Later through a couple plastic surgeries her nose was restored and there were no long term adverse effects from the dermabrasion.

Through my colossal effort to understand and forgive my mother, I understand that she did not intentionally embarrass me then and she doesn’t intentionally embarrass me now (even though she still does). I never told her I was embarrassed that she was there but I am sure she knew. I am not blameless in my relationship with my mother, and have done many things that hurt her too.

Well I will see you all in three weeks, or maybe sooner from an internet café in the Ukraine!