I am boarding a new Dreamliner at JFK’s Terminal 1 – the international terminal.  It is early fall, and I think the weather outside is neither too cold nor too hot, and the sun is bright.  I could feel it this morning through the windows in the waiting area at BWI – Baltimore’s Thurgood Marshall International Airport.  I haven’t been outside since 6 am though, so I am not at all sure what the weather is like now in New York at 2 pm.

I have my passport and boarding passes in my hand, and a Bic ballpoint pen.  I have been reviewing an email for work, and haphazardly scrawling notes on the corner of a magazine that is sticking out of my very old black leather tote, the one that my dad got me for my birthday when I was in graduate school, and which has been with me through countless trips back and forth to Mexico in the past 8 years.  There is one spot on the front where the leather is worn thin because I always used to cram in books and computer, leaving the pen in the pen holder to press awkwardly into the leather from the inside.

When I arrive at my seat, I realize there is no space in the overhead storage bin, so I toss the tote, my passport and boarding passes and pen onto the seat, and then take a step backwards, apologizing to the woman behind me in Spanish as I do, “Disculpa – es que no hay espacio adelante, voy a meter acá mi maleta.”

The woman responds in Spanish, smiling, “Claro, con cuidado,” she says as she watches me lean precariously past her, suitcase overhead, aimed towards the empty spot next to another black roll aboard.  “Mira, te ayudo,” says the man behind her, as he grabs the opposite side of my suitcase, helping me to stabilize it and ensuring that it lands safely in the designated spot in the overhead bin and not on any other unsuspecting passenger’s head.

Having successfully deposited my suitcase in a convenient spot, I sit down in my seat quickly, allowing the others to continue down the aisle to their own cramped airline seats, and its not until I’ve sat down that I realize that I did not get a single dirty look for holding up the line.  Not only that, my fellow travelers were irreproachable in their politeness, offering assistance and understanding when I had not expected it.

I pick up the issue of aire in the seat back pocket in front of me and flip through it until I doze off somewhere just after takeoff.  The last thing I remember is saying an Our Father to myself as the huge plane lifts off the runway, and holding onto the remaining 3 pages of the magazine that I have not yet stared absently at as I doze.

Somewhere around our cruising altitude I wake up, and even though I’m not feeling terribly motivated, I pull out my computer and start to work through a few questions for a submission we’ll need to finalize when I get back to the office.

I am interrupted by the flight attendant, who passes by my seat with her large rectangular cart.  Amazed, I notice that she has warm aluminum foil covered packets on top which she is placing in a precisely sized plastic dish, on precisely sized plastic trays with salad and a roll, and packets of salted peanuts and a mini Milky Way bar.  I close my computer, stashing it in the seat back pocket, and unfold the tray table, where the flight attendant places my own little plastic tray with salad and a warm aluminum foil packet.  I am now so accustomed to the U.S. airlines’ practice of serving no food, or charging extra for little what they do serve, that I marvel at this seemingly exotic practice.

I take the plastic wrap off of the salad, and drip half of the packaged Italian dressing over the top layer of leaves.  The little bowl is too small to mix it around.  As I munch on the salad, the elderly woman in the next seat down comments, “The pasta is very good,”

“Oh, is it?” I reply.

“Yes,” she tells me, “what are these little green things? Are they capers?”

I peel back the aluminum foil of my own packet carefully to find pasta with red sauce and melted cheese.  The pasta and sauce are served with a couple of pieces of zucchini, and as the woman had suggested, capers.

“I think they are capers,” I reply.  “How unusual – they usually serve capers with seafood.”

“Yes,” the woman agrees, “but I like it.  They give the pasta a nice flavor.  The pasta is very good.”

I nod and agree, “yes, it is.”

The woman falls silent again as she continues to eat her lunch, and I think to myself, what a lovely seat mate. She is slender, with very dark hair, cut above her shoulders, and she is wearing an impeccably coordinated outfit with a floral bomber jacket and khaki pants.  Her lips are painted a bright red, which matches her manicured finger nails, and she is wearing large stud earrings, like something your grandmother might wear.

She is like a throwback to an earlier time, when women would wear lipstick if they left the house, and gloves to church.  When small talk was not disdained as a waste of time, but rather part of life’s endless turns – with the butcher and the baker and the woman sitting next to you on the airplane, the grease between the wheels that ensured everything would keep moving smoothly, harmoniously.

As I sit in my cramped airplane seat, I realize that I have missed this – the politeness, the small talk, the grease – and I am happy to be heading home.