Notes From 3 March Flight to Key West

THE IDEA OF ORDER, APPROACHING KEY WEST

The whirl and vibration of propellers, along with our pilot's emergency instructions, are a buzz behind my orange earplugs. This Beech 1900 is vulnerable, its skin no thicker than mine, the sheeting on its wings held together by rivets no more impressive than upholstery tacks. I am hungry, working on a headache.

We leave Gainesville, FL, headed toward “a bright sunny day of +80 degrees” in Key West." The vibration of the plane forgotten, I look down on three lakes, three more lakes, a boat trailing a white tail behind. The strips of floss below are roads between neatly combed woods I surmise are planted pine.

On my (road) map, Archer, Bronson, and Chunky Pond* show. We cross I-75, fly over cattle that glint like metal filings in squares of tan and mauve, then houses of hunter green, olive, khaki, and pink; some of the houses have very few trees. On the wing out my window, blue panels open; I wonder if those metal rivets could pop loose.

The many subdivisions we pass over are iconographic, elaborate patterns of red tile laid in mathematical precision, then interrupted by the scrimshaw of the Suwannee River, a black ribbon scrolling toward the Gulf. Already we are dropping to the southwest, to Tampa. No coffee or pretzels on this flight; below us, long lines of ants on the north and southbound lanes of I-75. A bit of turbulence.

As the pilot announces our landing at Tampa/St. Pete, I see that the gray areas surrounded by green are cypress forests and the coastline is bejeweled with houses. Ball fields, construction sites, the windows in those houses. I am praying for the pilot's loves, whatever they are. We have each done something dangerous today.

Change of planes and I am in the sky again. The Sunshine Skyway, a curved eyebrow above water, doesn't bother me; I was far more nervous driving it in a car .

Below me, a geometry incised, it appears, by someone with a very long tool; then deep water over bands of chartreuse, the grid again, blue sky, houses crowding the water's edge, cloverleafs. From another planet we may look like we know what we're doing.

Captiva and Sanibel, a palette of green, brown, and chartreuse, then mauve patches of differing shapes that remind me of frescoes on old walls, bison in the caves at Lascaux. All one gleaming, iconic loveliness and, though it's a worry, right now I can't condemn people with houses situated on
fill for wanting this beauty every single day. Below: water and boats gleam like dimes tossed into a North Florida spring.