Winging West
What They Didn’t Tell Her in the Flight Info in the Seatback Pocket
mama and baby
‘side her; phantom milk let-down
as they fly the skies
—dotty seiter
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~3 x 5″; watercolor and ink in travel art journal
airport terminal scape
2025
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Notes about poem and art:
• I decided to aim for a haiku per day while we traveled. “What They Didn’t” was my first. I loved having 3-month-old William and his intrepid flying-solo-with-her-baby mom as my seatmates from Boston to Seattle!
• I painted After TSA on the fly, so to speak, while we grabbed a coffee between check-in and departure, testing my improvised travel art kit (in clear zip-lock bag, thank you very much, should any official need to inspect for contraband) for the first time. The set-up was a bit clumsy but I loved going into the zone for those few minutes.
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10 responses to “Winging West”
How wonderful to have a 3 year old as your flight companion…..and how lucky for mom and William to have you by their side for their journey.
Your whimsical little airport terminal scape is a delight! I’ve always been drawn to this kind of almost cartoon kind of art…but can never pull it off. Well done!
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William was three months old, not three years, and was such a sweetie. I was way impressed with his mom’s equanimity and ability to travel solo with such a young and first baby; travel went from Logan to SeaTac, with a layover, and then on to Alaska! Truth to tell, I was surprised with this young woman’s ease in general—when my first was three months old, not so much ease for me!
Thanks for your delight in my airport terminal scape and for identifying this little painting as almost cartoon-like. I was hoping against hope that I could pull off more such art while traveling but, as with myself as the first-time mother of a three-month-old, not so much!!!
I find that my fingers have increasingly independent plans!
I know: Alaska! Mama and babe flew from Anchorage to visit mama’s sister in MA, traveling as a dyad, and then back again to Anchorage, again with no additional adult to help out with travel logistics. The return trip was on a Thursday, and mama was returning to work for the first time since babe’s birth four days later, as a special education teacher and in a new location. I was agog with admiration.
Oh oh! Great flight companions and art to go! I love this! And the haiku, too! Now I want to travel…..ha ha!
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Thanks, Lola! I so enjoyed my flight companions (flight was otherwise tedious) and my flight of memories to when I was a newbie mom.
I’m often ambivalent about art-to-go when I consider it ahead of traveling, but I have not once regretted having made the effort. I come home with such embodied memories of painting in places away from home : )
And, speaking of embodied memories, sitting side by side with that mama and babe brought back such vivid recollections of early days of nursing my own babes; truly, phantom milk let-down!
Thanks for your applause, Sheila!!!
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