Your life is a disaster. You've been watching it crumble all year. And now you sit on a plane to Rome wondering how far the dollar will drop before the wheels hit the runway of Da Vinci. You're about to be laid off your job. Your relationship is ending. You will have to move when you return to New York. You look out the window to see if you can still see New York. Of course, there are only clouds.

Your friends say it's insane to vacation together when you're breaking up, when you have no money.You look at your girlfriend. Donna is sleeping. Rationally, you agree. But you have that feeling, that special feeling in the pit of your stomach. You feel sure in the way you imagine football players feel sure before a game. You picture them in their bulky shoulder pads and helmets and tight pants fingering that leather ball. You imagine they feel on the edge of victory, on the brink of catastrophe. You feel only the latter but still it is a beautiful feeling because you have just been kicked off like that football and it is a long rise and fall before you drop to the muddy field. Your father used to watch the Wide World of Sports when you were a kid. You remember the picture of the skier crashing through the gates on one long endless skid down the snow, the skis snapping, the skier tumbling tragically as the sports announcer says solemnly "the agony of defeat". At this moment defeat seems less agonizing than success. Maybe because success seems impossible or maybe you are perverse. Maybe you have fear of success, maybe you are self-destructive. Maybe you are typically female. You decide that really you are Henry Miller.

The stewardess hands you warm towelette. The plane is such a nice nowhere environment you feel afraid to land in Rome and leave it. There is something comforting about its white plastic walls and cushiony chairs and endless trail of food and drink. The stewardess is telling the most obnoxious guy on the plane that she has to work for seven more years before she can get retirement. You think about her serving coffee and towelettes to people for thirty years. You have never worked full time. You will never receive retirement. You are happy. You realize you are happy because you are not planning on living that long. You are destined to die young. Die young and you escape the accumulation of debt, the agony of defeat, the dilemma of success. You wish this were always clear to you.

It's not that you have no plans for your future. Now you believe in reincarnation. You are waiting for your next try. You are convinced you will get to come back as a bird. You love birds. You love to fly. You love the plane on its way to Rome. You love the lurch of takeoff and the free fall of landing, the bump and skid as the wheels hit the runway. You picture yourself as a bird soaring then doing those short wing flaps before your feet hit the telephone wire. You see yourself as a cedar waxwing. Cedar waxwings are very sexy: they have a slim black mask and a smooth soft crest. You smile as the plane noses down toward Italy. You will look good in your black mask. You will feel the air rippling around your body as you cut through the clouds. You will not have to fasten your safety belt or stare at the bits of dried pulp that cling to the juice glass.

Like a bird, you wonder what you will eat after this meal. You picture yourself drinking endless cups of coffee, endless glasses of wine. "Due cappuccini, per favore," reverberates in your head like a migraine. You listen to the guy from Bensonhurst speaking Italian-American to all the Italian-American women on the plane. He is telling the story of why the Leaning Tower of Pisa leans for the 20th time this trip. He laughs disingenuously at the end as if
it's the first time he's told the story. He's a real talker. He's a real ladies man. You look at the cover of the airline magazine. It has a picture of a dove. You close your eyes. You sleep through the landing in Rome.