5000 miles separate me from the land of hyperinflation and empanadas.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” comes the voice.

“Damas y caballeros,” slightly less sure this time

and marred by a thick American accent.

But there’s no time for that—

we’re ejected from the Big Apple

into the perpetual twilight of another night in flight.

I stare at each bulb of light receding

but there are thousands,

I crane my neck until they’re gone

but I’ve seen them dozens of times before.

My only anchor gone,

time is jello and sleep is distant

but just out of reach amidst the

mechanical roar and turbulence.

I’m 11 months old and my parents don’t sleep.  I scream if she stops pacing with me, fuss if he puts me down.  So they walk to South America.

I’m 4 and I walk past first class.  I wonder why I never get one of those big, cushy seats.  I think it’s luck.

I’m 8 and my nose is bleeding.  Parched air at a low pressure taunts my nasal blood vessels until they burst.  Hot pink sweatpants spotted with rust, my mom tells me to claim I fought an alligator.

I’m 12 and I retch.  We’re not even in the air anymore but I almost black out walking off the plane.  I vomit next to the strollers on the jetway. Stupid inner ear.  Over a decade of flying behind me, and still my reflexes don’t understand.

I’m 13 and I’ve woken up.  Time is now honey; the first rays of morning light spear what little hope is left of more time asleep.  Has it always taken this long to cross the Amazon?  I hold unnecessary contempt for the scrolling flight route map, so I jokingly insist that there must be “a temporal anomaly over Brazil.”

I’m 14 an—planesaresaferthancarsplanesaresaferthancars—and it hits me.  You’d think it would be less shocking with the thousands of miles I’ve flown over hundreds of hours, but apparently not.  I’m almost asleep, but my heart starts pounding. There are miles of air below, what if we stop moving? Finally, I shut my amygdala up.

We always come in low over golden fields.  You’d never guess 13 million people were right there.

Passport Control gives way to taxi gridlock and political banners, grimy concrete and grand buildings between.

Jorge or Miguel will smile and buzz us in,

we open the elevator doors with a handle,

we rise and enter

el departamento de los abuelos.