This Flight Tonight
The wing of the plane dips out of the murk and the ground sparkles with the lights of Scarborough or South Portland or Westbrook. It’s been raining in Portland all afternoon, and now, at 10:30 at night, the sky is ink. I’m not sure exactly which direction we’re heading, or which way is home.
It’s been a harrowing trip. Late into O’Hare from Tucson, a mad 20-minute dash, weaving and bobbing around foot traffic (OK, and throwing the occasional elbow), only to arrive at the gate and find my flight to Portland delayed. When we finally boarded, we sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half. Fortunately, we were airborne before I started ramming the door with the cocktail cart and ended up on the national news.
I’d been visiting my friends Dean and Lesley, who’ve welcomed me into their home for several restorative visits in the past few years. They have picked me up from airports at all hours, even making the two-hour trek to Phoenix to retrieve me when that was the best flight I could get.
On this side of the country, I’d left my car in Falmouth with my friends Kim and Bob, who offered to pick me up when I returned. Needing to find a place to leave my car is an unwelcome wrinkle in my new life. Heretofore, Portland was my town. Friends left their cars in my driveway when they flew. The long-term lot is out of the question, of course; as I made clear in my January cover story for this magazine, Elizabeth Peavey does not pay for parking in Portland.
Kim and I have been friends for over four decades, but I still hated to impose. I knew she was moderating a talk at sportscaster Dave Eid’s book launch the evening of my arrival and I didn’t want to heap one more thing on her plate.
You see, my friend Kim is the famed and former WGME news anchor Kim Block, who, six years ago, slipped on ice in her yard and sustained a debilitating traumatic head injury, or TBI. She had to give up her nearly 40-year career on the air and relearn the basic skills necessary to navigate in this world again.
Kim has been relentless with her therapies and utterly heroically pushing herself to make appearances and participate in the myriad charitable and social events that have always defined her life. I know the toll this takes. She may look great standing on a stage or in a Facebook post about the event, but she must then spend days immobilized on the couch recuperating from any such venture.
So, doing a book event in Saco for her former colleague and then waiting around for my delayed flight to come in was, to my mind, out of the question. “No need to get me,” I texted her from Chicago. “I’ll Uber to your house.”
And that’s when Kim reminded me that I was the one who met her at the airport back when we were still new friends and she was returning from burying her beloved dad, cradling his trumpet in her arms. She texted back: “We’ll see.”
As my plane descends and I watch the place that used to be my home come into clearer focus, I know I’ve lost more than a parking space in my exile. Portland was part of my identity, and for the past six-plus years I’ve felt like a displaced person, orbiting my city, occasionally setting down, but unable to settle.
But I also know I am privileged. I have the strength, support and resources to live this way. What of those who are not so fortunate, those for whom securing a place to call home feels like a game of musical chairs? And what about all those left standing?
After we land and my phone pings on, a text pops up from Kim before I can even open the Uber app: “We’re on our way.”
I clamber, exhausted, onto the descending escalator with my wheelie bag and feel a catch in my throat. Every so often, my uprootedness catches up with me, and I long to belong somewhere. Like on this night.
Then I see my friend at the bottom of the stairs, leaning on her cane, wearing her blue-lensed, light-blocking TBI glasses. She’s standing in almost the same spot I waited for her nearly 40 years earlier. This is no small act of kindness. This is going to cost her.
Kim doesn’t see me at first, and I furiously wave. The women behind her think I’m waving at them and look at each other, confused. I point to my friend and they laugh about the misunderstanding. Then I catch Kim’s eye and she smiles, lighting up the entire airport.
And I know I am home.
Elizabeth Peavey touches down here monthly.
