by Marie Soubranne as told to Hyokyung Park

In January of this year, I came to the United States for my exchange semester. My father and I took a plane from Paris to New York. But just before boarding, I realized that…

by Claire Mitchell

Most people go through childhood viewing their parents as human adjacent. As a kid I thought my parents never had a human emotion until they drank too much, or when we attended funerals. Really…

by Anne Graue

Whenever I fly from New York to Kansas or Cyprus, I know the planes will rise, large chunks of metal will move into the air, first on the ground, then in the sky. Placing…

by Scott Saalman

Leveling at 30,000 feet after departing LaGuardia Airport, our jet was jostled. We represented nothing but a tubular chew toy in the jaws of a masticating, mythical sky beast. The plane’s drop was sudden,…

by Sheila Sundar

In the winter of 2009, two days before my son was born, I walked my father the four miles from the door of my Brooklyn apartment, across the Manhattan Bridge, to the pier on…

by Elise Gottschalk

Mom tells me that as a toddler I'd look up at a plane in the sky and point and say "Daddy! Daddy!" I don't remember doing this, but I'd guess it's true. After being…

by Robert Landon

It is only on overnight flights that I allow myself the luxury of a sleeping pill. Not that I am afraid of flying itself. I rather like it, in fact. However, being tallish, anxiety-prone,…

by Beth McKim

In those days it was as if each of us had been given a daunting assignment: observing and reporting all suspicious people and their activities. This was especially true of those flying on commercial…

by Josh Lefkowitz

Memorial Day weekend. I'm on my way to North Carolina to visit my bro and his wife and their two kids, my three-year-old niece and the newborn boy. I can't wait…