Imagine. You have been cooped up for what seems like three years. In fact, soon it won’t “seem” like three years. It will be three years of COVID-19. Or to be more precise, your regularly timed trip somewhere hasn’t happened long enough so that, well, in the end four years have elapsed. I mean, that’s long enough, isn’t it? Imagine.

Imagining is a good thing. Unfortunately, it can be a bad thing if you’re imagining things that simply cannot turn out the way you want them to. And travel seems to be one of those things. Now, let me make this clear. I am describing what is definitely a first-world problem. The spoiled nature of this complaint may be somewhat tempered by the fact that the complainant is a quadriplegic, that is to say, me. But really, it comes down to kvetching, which is always ugly and self-indulgent and utterly necessary. Where was I?

Well, to begin with, I was sitting on a Virgin Airways 787. Virgin has a pleasant habit of not destroying my wheelchair. In this regard, it stands in sharp distinction from many of the world’s great air carriers. British Airways, for example, which managed to not only destroy the very frame of my wheelchair, but to do so in a way that was insidious and delayed in its manifestation. Never mind we are talking about the past. For the present, here I am on the way to London, and, as mentioned, four years have gone by. What does this mean? Well, it means losing connection with friends and family. And this is as true for me as it is for Jane. Except for Jane, it also means losing connection with the place of her birth. And that, by the way, is a horrible thing. We were very glad to be on our way.

This time, as opposed to a flight we took in May, we were prepared for all the right neuromuscular moves. Which means getting up on my feet. Jane and I did this occasionally with the help of a flight attendant. And it was good. All it took was maybe five minutes of standing there in the slightly swaying aircraft to extend the lower back, blow some air into the chest cavity. And Robert is avuncular. Or, if you insist, Bob’s your uncle.

So we had done this once, Jane and I and the flight attendant. The back was stretched, blood moved around appropriately. And, well, it was time to do this again. So here came Jane on one side, the flight attendant on the other. And I had to acknowledge that neither was terribly robust. Everyone needs some slack at this point in the 11-hour haul to the UK. Nevertheless, all were willing. All three of us. Jane under one arm, flight attendant under the other arm. Heave ho. 

Sorry, I said. I was trying not to panic. I mean, I am getting older. Strength is waning. OK, I said, mustering a sort of cheery four a.m. brightness. Again. No go. Finally, something occurred to me. I said in a way that an understated British person would understand…actually, this would probably be easier if I unbuckled my seatbelt. Voilà. Up on my feet in seconds. Everyone had a good laugh. Or feigned having a good laugh. I don’t know. At least I got my back stretched.

Time for breakfast, of course. I mean, no sane person can really eat at that point. On the other hand, there’s not much else to do when you’re somewhere over Iceland. So I had a full English breakfast, all the usual ingredients. And damned if the pilot didn’t come on around the last cup of tea. Announcing our descent. Heathrow in less than a half an hour. Time to buckle up. But there was a little problem. My seatbelt didn’t work.

The buckle had fallen apart, strangely. And actually there was nothing strange about it. But only in retrospect did it dawn on me that all that yanking, trying to get me standing while strapped into my chair…did not do much for the seatbelt. Sorry, I told the flight attendant. I just can’t get this thing fastened. The buckle had come apart. And one critical part, a sort of combination spring and lever, was missing. The airplane was making those S turns that signal the lining up with the Heathrow runways. Flight attendants were running around. Finally the Purser leaned over me. He’d been talking to the pilot. We can’t land if a passenger isn’t strapped in. What to do? Well, this question was entirely rhetorical.

Sir, he explained, we have a sort of restraint system designed for violent passengers. It includes handcuffs, but it does hold you in place for landing, if necessary. Sure, I said. Barely battling a very exhausted eye.

Jane, resourceful person that she has, had been scrambling around on the aircraft carpet. And suddenly there it was, the missing part from the buckle. Good thing. The aircraft was making the sounds of lowering flaps, then wheels, etc. On the ground in minutes.

Now, to put this wonderful one-month trip in perspective, that is to say, the perspective of age and disability…let as fast forward to Honfleur, Normandy. What were we doing there? In a general sense, we were headed home. We had boarded the Queen Mary 2 early, following the ship around just after it arrived in Southampton and proceeded to drop off/pick up passengers for the next New York run. The idea was to make a bit of sightseeing on the Continent easier, particularly for Jane. There would be no packing or unpacking of bags. No trying to catch trains, etc. We would just cruise into a series of ports and have a series of excursions. Bruges. The Hague. 

And Le Havre, Normandie…a perfectly pleasant modern port city, rebuilt after World War II bombing. But maybe not a real spot for tourism. So we’d hired a wheelchair-accessible cab to take us to this picturesque town down the coast, a stronghold for fisherman over many centuries. Famed for its seafood and, more recently, the birthplace of Erik Satie.

But I’m not going to sugarcoat things. My wheelchair went tilting and jerking over the cobblestones. And I vowed to never traverse another cobblestone again. And at that point, I was ready to vow to never travel again. Because what it was funny on the flight, wasn’t funny for much of the trip. I grow old. I wear my spinal cord rolled. Everything was harder. Aboard the ship, usually an extremely easy place to be, I began to dread getting up in the morning. Because there was this awkward moment when I had to stand, deal with the gently rolling north Atlantic and collapse into a wheelchair. In the past this hasn’t been difficult at all. But that was the past.

We have another trip planned. A big one, in the winter. For now, I have to hang onto this reality. Because travel has always been a way for me to compensate for limited mobility. But I’m rethinking what limited is. And what mobility is, also. I’m facing the fact that one of the most exciting moments on the trip was reading Claire Keegan’s wonderful new novella. And we can do that sort of thing at home, can’t we? No seatbelt required. Stay tuned.