Last night on the way to the party I looked up into the evening sky and saw a Cessna flying unsteadily over the San Francisco Bay. It pitched hard right, swerved, then pitched deeply left. My husband was driving, and I said, “Oh man, look at that plane!” And then the suffering thing pointed straight down and I yelled, “It’s going down!”
My husband, calm beside me, said, “Really?”
“It’s crashing!” I had my hand over my mouth. Those people. Those poor people.
And he said, “Julie, it’s a model airplane. It’s a toy.”
I looked closer and could immediately see that he was right. I laughed hard then made fun of myself, putting on a crazy lady voice: It’s going down! Bah! My husband laughed too, shook his head and continued driving, calmly, steadily.
It’s amazing how something so clear and urgent can turn out to be not what I thought at all.
Julie Barton 