At 16, I flew to California, leaving for good,<\/p>\n
a first for me, as I had never traveled by plane.<\/p>\n
It was one of the coldest days of winter,<\/p>\n
the windchill bringing the temps down to single digits,<\/p>\n
and Long Island’s wet winters freeze your bones.<\/p>\n
January 17, 1977, I boarded a 747 to LAX from JFK,<\/p>\n
with a box of mementos, a suitcase of flannels and 501’s.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I sat in the way back, the last seat, nothing behind<\/p>\n
when I felt the wave, the suffocating notion,<\/p>\n
“I’m in a tube, oh my god it’s a tube!” and<\/p>\n
there was nowhere to go, no place to catch air.<\/p>\n
I stripped off my flannel, only a thermal undershirt,<\/p>\n
and cooled off, popped a white or blue or red,<\/p>\n
I don’t remember but the thermal shirt was white.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And when I opened my eyes, I saw the guy looking<\/p>\n
My row mate, only two of us, was watching me,<\/p>\n
well, maybe my white undershirt, my bra peeking<\/p>\n
through the thick cotton, like my head, light and warm<\/p>\n
And when I next opened my eyes, I heard a faint voice<\/p>\n
announcing, “Welcome to Los Angeles.” I was home.<\/p>\n
I flew. I panicked. I slept, I awoke. The world blinked.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
At 16, I flew to California, leaving for good, a first for me, as I had never traveled by plane. It was one of the coldest days of winter, the windchill bringing the temps down to single digits, and Long Island’s wet winters freeze your…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":196,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,441],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marathon-poem","category-poetry-prompt-responses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/196"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72503"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":72659,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72503\/revisions\/72659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thepoetrymarathon.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}