Amanda Cleary Eastep

“Are you ready to go back in time and space?”

The six-year-old with the window seat asks this of the young man sitting between us in row 29.

There’s an “affirmative” from the man.

I’m glad that this one time I chose the aisle seat, giving up my view of another Chicago farewell.

The plane rolls along the taxiway.

“We’re going faster than a car. Faster than a train,” the boy reports.

Then the plane slows and takes its place next in line for takeoff.

“Are you ready to go back in time and space?” the boy asks again.

“I told you I am,” says the man.

I’m ready, I want to say. How far back are we going? Yesterday? Your sixth birthday? My grown son’s sixth birthday? How about when dinosaurs roamed the land? (No, that would be my birthday.)

“10-9-8…” The boy counts down the magic words. And the plane begins to crawl down the runway.

“7-6-5-4…”

READ THE REST of “The Magic in Green Shoes and Memories,” my first essay with The Cultivating Project since joining this fellowship of artists.