Director's Notes - 162 - Alpha (Patreon)

(NOTE: As always, Director's Notes contain spoilers)

From 2003 until 2013, I didn't set foot on an airplane. It is not because I wasn't having to travel anywhere. My family lives all over the country: Washington, Texas, Idaho, South Carolina, Florida. And I live in New York.

I didn't get on planes because I was terrified of them. When I flew, my palms would sweat. My heartrate would increase. Every change in speed or slightest noise would cause me to seize up in panic. And I couldn't deal with it, so I stopped flying.

Instead, I drove or took Amtrak. I twice took a train round trip from New York City to Seattle. I drove back and forth in those 10 years from New York to Dallas close to a dozen times. These 20-40 hour trips could best be described as exhausting.

But I still couldn't cope with a 3 hour flight. It was made worse by the fact that I had to burn personal days at work to add time for travel.

I read articles about conquering my fear of flying. I went to talk therapy. And these were helpful. My therapist helped me recognize that I was displacing my stress of life, hiding it instead in an irrational phobia of air travel. Reading about how airplanes work and what causes turbulence was also good. But none of it convinced me to get on a plane.

Then in 2013, my theater company, the New York Neo-Futurists, booked a small tour in Texas, and I was out of vacation days at work. And even if I could have worked out the extra days off for travel, it would feel weird to drive to Texas while the rest of my group flew down there.

So at the expense of my future self, I agreed to fly. It was a bold and confident agreement that I would not have to deal with for a couple of months. And when the tour finally arrived, I found myself standing in Laguardia airport with a group of my dearest friends, as I tried not to panic and run away.

I was tired, because I didn't sleep the night before. I was cranky and scared, and the flight was uneventful as far as any flight goes, but I was a wreck

.It was around this same time that Night Vale began to explode in popularity, and we were beginning to book our own tours, and I realized I could no longer avoid air travel. It was about to be a requirement for my job.

So I tried a new tactic for the next several dozen flights I would have to take in 2014. Instead of trying to be calm and comfortable, I accepted the fact that air travel is stressful and uncomfortable. TSA is a nuisance. Legroom is terrible. Standing in lines carrying 30 pounds of bags is a literal pain. And my experience in all of these things is no different than anyone else's. Instead of wishing them away, I would accept them. I would experience them in all their obnoxious glory. I would think about my stiff back and legs, concentrate on how annoying it is to remove your shoes and belt and laptop, acknowledge the shitty dry, microbe-laden air in the cabin. I would scoff at first class.

And it worked. I had my ups and downs, to be sure. It took about 2 years of regular flights for me to finally realize I don't mind flying at all. In fact, I kind of enjoy it. It's a miracle. It's fun. It's usually beautiful, too, to see millions of populated acres across the country and the world.

I'm not saying this approach should work for everyone, but it's worth a shot if you're dealing with the same phobia.

There are several storylines in Night Vale's history that are really just me working through my personal bullshit, and this upcoming 5-part series about the missing Delta flight mentioned way back in the first episode, is an exciting way for me to me to do that again.

- Jeffrey Cranor
February 15, 2020

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