Touring with Baby Part 1

I love flying. I love the surge of take off and the expectation of the wheels touching down. I love looking at the pattern of 'civilization' and nature from way up. I love being reminded of the similarity between the patterns we build and the patterns nature builds -- we are made of her.

I am taking off from Toronto, flying to Calgary for a brief stopover and then on to Kelowna with Theatre Rusticle -- touring "April 14, 1912", the show in which I play the Titanic. It is one my favourite things to perform, because the team involved is brilliant on every level, because there is no phoning it in. If you do, the whole show sinks -- and not the good way.

I have my baby in my arms and my amazing husband in the seat next -- he has taken two weeks off work to come along so that we can all be together. I am suddenly not so thrilled to fly. I am excited by the idea that Pablo gets to fly, see mountains and ocean before he is a year old, that Dennes and I are continuing to do the things we would have done without a baby...of course taking into consideration Pablo's needs, but not becoming complacent to life, especially our desire to travel, and have vacations. (Next stop for Pablo: Cuba? where we decided on his name.)

I am suddenly frightened, as the wheels leave the ground, of the fragility of all of this, of the utter incomprehensibility of this grimy metal bird of gigantic proportions with all of us in it taking off into the air. What if the laws of physics just suddenly stop obeying themselves? Have we discovered a principle that guarantees that these laws will always behave in a certain way? Perhaps it is the research for this show that has me thinking of the mysteries of the world (eg: the depths of the ocean that we understand less than the depths of space). It all seems a very delicate balance, a delicate battle, to use the title of a Matjash Mrowzewski ballet, and I am not sure I am willing to put Pablo into this uncertainty.

But Pablo's hand reaches to the wall of the plane. He places his palm flat against it and, feeling the vibrations, he smiles at me.

And then he doesn't cry for the whole 4 hour flight.
He has prunes and a bit of avocado salsa from Daddy's hamburger in the Milestones (ugh) restaurant in the Calgary airport and then falls asleep for most of the second flight to Kelowna.
What an amazing kid.

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