Attention fellow passengers: I choose a window seat on purpose. If you ask me to put the shade down, the answer will be no.
When you consider the modern-day miracle of air travel, what Louise Hay so aptly describes as the miracle of “flying in a little metal tube through the sky” how can you even entertain the notion of shutting out the view?
I fly with my eyes and my window shade wide open.
Top Two Reasons to Fly with the Window Shade Up:
- If you’re safety-minded, you want to keep an eye on things.
- If you’re creative, you want to watch the clouds.
I’m both. I pay attention to the fllght attendant announcements. I want to know where my closest exit is. And on every flight, at some point, I try to write down what the patchwork beneath and the celestial features above look and feel like. I can never describe them quite to my satisfaction. But it’s exercises the writing muscles, and invokes the wonders of this magnificent, magnanimous Universe.
A sky so blue deserves attention.
The World Beneath Our Wings
I don’t miss the smoking section (who were we kidding? Like you can keep cigarette smoke contained merely by designating an area) or the Barbiefication of stewardesses. But oh how I loved the way pilots used to call out the geographical features on the route. That would have been such a bonus on my most recent trip from Chicago to Boston, swooping up and over Lake Michigan, passing over immense rivers, tiny lakes, and vice versa, before swooshing the rim of the deep, blue Atlantic, and touching down at the lip of Boston Harbor. I could see it all, unfurling above and below, from my window seat.
Landing at Boston Logan International, with a sweet view of the harbor boatyards and residences, and the North Atlantic beyond.
On a business trip last May from Atlanta, I got stuck with an aisle seat. It was OK. My friend and colleague had the window. She’s a shades-up person, too, so we were good to go. But it was a smaller plane, with a shared window split between two rows. My friend promptly raised the shade. The gentleman in front of us promptly lowered it. We went through a couple of rounds of this before a verbal altercation occurred, complete with a finger-pointing talking-to that my friend and colleague did not take kindly to, and expressed as much. “Sir, do not point your finger at me!” Later, she apologized to me for the unpleasantness. No need. I found her forthrightness inspirational. It came in handy on that recent flight to Boston.
Keep the skies friendly. And the window shade up.
On this trip, my aisle and middle seat companions, a father maybe a little younger than me and his teen-age son, were less aggressive than the domineering Middle Eastern suit on the Atlanta flight, but no less pleased that the window shade was open. Our communication started, and stayed, polite: “For the things we’re trying to do, it’s better with the window shade down,” the father confided in me before takeoff, as morning sunbeams were delightfully shining on the tarmac. Father and son were both playing on their phones. I explained, kindly, I hope, that I need to see the sun, having come from a part of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that suffers from considerable cloud cover, and that while the sun was shining directly into the window I’d be happy to keep the shade partway down. As soon as we taxied away from the direct beams, I put the shade all the way up.
Later, when I returned from the restroom, the shade was all the way down. I took a deep breath, and pushed it back up. It took courage. That’s the moment when I was grateful for my forthright friend and colleague.
Moral of the story: If you want to block out the clouds, the sky, the world, the day, that’s your prerogative. Buy your own window seat.
Pro tip for authors 1: Carry bookmarks to share with literary seatmates.
Pro tip for authors 2: Leave a signed copy of your book at the airport (inspired by the Book Fairies).
Let me know where you leave your books for readers to discover—and whether you’re a shade-up or shade-down traveler.
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