Somehow I heard myself thinking and wondered if a different intention for this flight would be more condusive to having a pleasant time, but I was so exhausted from lack of sleep that all I could muster was, “Actually, I’d like to sit next to a super hot woman who is kind and openhearted.” I chuckled to myself at the ridiculousness of this thought and minutes later was fast asleep.
At some point I roused from a very deep rest and was momentarily disoriented. Disoriented first because I don’t normally sleep so deeply on a plane, and also disoriented because there seemed to be something missing… It took me a moment to realize that what was different was a lack of inner noise or tension, and in the space where that agitation usually exists was a warm, gentle peacefulness; a freedom from the normal stress and strain usually running through my system.
I sighed and was just about to snuggle back into slumber when something else occurred to me; my head was resting on someone’s shoulder!
I suppose I should have been startled or embarrassed, but the warmth and comfort I was wrapped in seemed to calm the slightest impulse of fear or habitual contraction.
My baby-head swiveled sleepily to peer at the origin of this sanctuary shoulder. How totally odd that a stranger would let me fall asleep on them, on an airplane…
When I looked up my eyes were met by an ocean of kindness. Staring back at me, with crystal blue eyes as still as the open sky, was one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen face to face. She didn’t blink. She didn’t waiver. She just held me in her gaze in a way that seemed to shine loving acceptance into my whole being and ease any thoughts of inappropriateness or unconventional awkwardness.
I’m pretty sure I was just staring at her, mouth hanging open, eyes blinking stupidly, when her hand came up and gently rested on the side of my face, “No…” She said with some foreign accent and gently pushed my head back onto her shoulder.
Um, did she just say "no" and push my head down onto her shoulder?
My chest gushed with love and my mind shattered it’s conceptual ceiling.
I would have immediately fallen asleep again, but disbelief shot me like cupid’s arrow. I was compelled to look at her again. One, to check if in fact an impossibly hot woman was connected to the shoulder I was laying on. And two, I suppose, simply to confirm that this was a real experience I was actually participating in.
My head bobbled up again to confront the high-altitude rapture sitting next to me. Yup; a super hot and unfathomably kind woman… still staring at me.
Sigh… I chuckled again to myself, this time at the calamity unfolding in my inner experience; the retarded traffic jam that happens when beliefs collide head-on with direct experience.
I think I began to try to say something, but the beatific hand of beauty was again on my face, pushing my head down into her shoulder, “No, you rest…”
You know that skit on Saturday Night Live when motivational speaker, Matt Foley (played by actor Chris Farley) is giving a pep talk to a family and he keeps referencing his “van down by the river?” I remember watching that skit and experiencing an inner revolt because it was so gut-bustlingly funny and simultaneously so completely ridiculous that my mind didn’t know how to orient towards it. I remember saying to myself, “No, no, no, no!”, and yet, at the same time, some other part of me was excitedly saying, “Yes, yes, yes, yes!”
That’s kind of what was happening for me with this woman on this airplane; disbelief was flagrantly fraternizing with bliss! I mean, what friggin category does this experience get filed into? What in the science-fiction-cucumber-sauce is going on here, anyway?!
Luckily, God has a plan. And, part of that plan is designed around my mind not being able to figure some things out. So, the next thing I knew, my eye lids were moving down over my eyes and a smile was spreading on my angel-like face. Apparently I was going to surrender to this Goddess of Nurturing Kindness and go down for round two of fantasy dream-time.
So I did. I surrendered. In addition to consenting to more sleep (Though, in the bigger picture did I even have a choice?!), I realized that I was also consenting to allow my mind to rest as well. To allow thought and disbelief to yield to the radical truth of this moment: I am getting exactly what I asked for, and more!
I woke up again, mildly aware of the fact that she was adjusting the blanket that she had pulled over me while I was sleeping. Did I mention that she put a blanket on me while I was sleeping? She did. She put an actual blanket on actual me while I was actually sleeping.
What?! Who does that?! When do epically hot strangers put blankets on skinny bearded strangers on strange airplanes?!
I’ll tell you when, Sarkis: NOW. Right NOW is when things like that happen.
Eventually I woke up and began interacting with this woman like an older-than-post-toddler human being. She was (of course) supremely kind and effortlessly conversational, turning her attention away from me only to tend to her boyfriend who apparently was ill and also besieged by her unending beneficence.
At one point I looked over at them and she was spoon feeding her boyfriend soup. I think I actually sputtered and laughed out loud because it seemed there was no limit to how wondrous this woman was; again, my mind attempting to reject the implications of a living saint being as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside…
Before the flight landed I let myself stare out the widow and marvel at life’s precision and intelligence. How amazing and magical it was that even though I had jokingly invoked the intention to sit next to an attractive, kind-hearted woman, that it had in fact been manifested and even amplified ten-fold. What a gift to be met by such presence and love by a complete stranger.
Mmm, yes, that is accurate: a COMPLETE stranger.
I let my thoughts drift again, wondering if she was a contestant in the International Heidi Klum Lookalike Contest, or if there even was such a contest, or if there wasn’t that there should be because she would certainly take first place in that contest.
The flight had landed and “Heidi” was tending to her boyfriend as they prepared to exit the plane. Before getting up she turned to me and smiled, saying in her sexy foreign accent, “It was wonderful to meet you.” She had one of my hands in both of her hands for a brief moment, and I’m pretty sure the spasm in my torso emitted no words in response, but a big smile and a heart bursting with gratitude certainly shone my thankfulness back to her.
I don’t remember one thing we talked about nor do I remember any salient facts about her or her boyfriend at all. What I do remember was how it felt resting my head on her shoulder, and what it was like to wake up with kind hands pulling a warm blanket over me: Soft, simple, safe sanctuary…
Super-hot, soft, simple, safe sanctuary…
I let my thoughts drift again, wondering if she was a contestant in the International Heidi Klum Lookalike Contest, or if there even was such a contest, or if there wasn’t that there should be because she would certainly take first place in that contest.
The flight had landed and “Heidi” was tending to her boyfriend as they prepared to exit the plane. Before getting up she turned to me and smiled, saying in her sexy foreign accent, “It was wonderful to meet you.” She had one of my hands in both of her hands for a brief moment, and I’m pretty sure the spasm in my torso emitted no words in response, but a big smile and a heart bursting with gratitude certainly shone my thankfulness back to her.
I don’t remember one thing we talked about nor do I remember any salient facts about her or her boyfriend at all. What I do remember was how it felt resting my head on her shoulder, and what it was like to wake up with kind hands pulling a warm blanket over me: Soft, simple, safe sanctuary…
Super-hot, soft, simple, safe sanctuary…
