The View from the Middle Seat

What I learned about myself from seat 21E thirty thousand feet in the air.

I recognize that someone has to sit in the middle seats during an airplane flight, but I end up there a lot more than most. There are two reasons for this: One, my wife likes the window seat and if I want to sit next to her (and I do), seat B or E is my designated parking place. And two, when I'm alone I just can't bring myself to shell out the extra 35 dollars often required to reserve a window.

I find myself in the middle seat even more often these days as my wife and I gradually glide into retirement. In the past two years we have savored the food and art of Italy, admired the culture and people of Southeast Asia, and visited several new places in the U.S. Most of those trips involved lots of air travel and scenery, so I have become familiar not only with the middle seat, but also with how to use my cell-phone camera to get the best photos from that position.

We also have more time to visit our daughter in Seattle, a city where a camera and an airplane window go together like salmon and capers. Above the Emerald City, a passenger can look down on the waters of Puget Sound and Lake Washington with their lush islands dotting the azure water below. The view also treats fliers to a number of stunning mountain peaks rising from near sea level up to fourteen thousand feet in elevation.

My wife and I still work occasionally, so our schedules don’t always coincide, recently necessitating separate flights from Seattle. On mine I was assigned seat 21E, right in the middle. It was a rare and beautifully clear day, and middle seat or not, I was anxious to get some pictures from the air.

The newer aircraft I was on had a 3D maps feature as part of its seatback entertainment system, so once in the air I activated it, enabling me to view all the labelled landmarks in our path. As we neared the Cascade Mountains, we made a slow turn to the southwest with both Mount Rainier and Mount St. Helens up ahead. I got my phone camera ready.

To my amazement, the man sitting in the window seat next to me closed his eyes, totally disinterested in the scenery. The young man and woman in front of me were more interested in one another than in anything outside the plane, and they began passionately kissing, while the obviously embarrassed outsider next to them kept her face buried in a paperback.

I stretched my neck into the personal space of Mr. Dozing Window Seater in order to get a better view outside. Suddenly, into my vision came what was undoubtedly the best image of Mount St. Helens I had ever seen from a commercial flight, the sun's morning shadows falling perfectly on its eruption-torn crater. I immediately picked up my phone and snapped several photos past my sleeping seatmate. I kept taking photos until the mountain was out of sight.

I looked again at the 3D map on the seatback in front of me and saw that Mount Rainier was, at that very moment, visible on the left side of aircraft. Glancing expectantly in that direction, I was horrified. From the exit row in front of me to the entire rear of the plane, every window shade on the port side was tightly closed, the window seat occupants either glued to their phones, reading newspapers or watching action movies on their seatback entertainment screens.

Why? I thought. Why were so many people, some of whom probably paid 35 dollars for the privilege of sitting next to a blocked window, voluntarily blind to the majesty only a short distance away? I might understand the young couple's reluctance to stop making out in the seats in front of me, but what about everyone else? Wouldn't they want to put their movies on pause for a few seconds to view one of God’s most magnificent creations?

Shaking my head, I again leaned forward to glance out the window on my right. Just a few dozen miles in the distance was the majestic Mount Adams, with its white glacier gleaming in the morning sun. Again I began to snap photos, thinking how I couldn’t wait to show my Facebook friends how I’m spending my retirement.

Suddenly I put down my camera, a troubling question forcing its way into my mind. While I had been taking pictures of these exquisite mountains, had I paused long enough to really look at them? Was I, in a way, just as guilty of not appreciating their beauty as the passengers with their shades down? I thought about other trips I had taken. I had thousands of photographs from dozens of locations, but had I really seen anything? And why did I insist on posting the pictures on social media? So I could show the world what a great view I missed while I was looking through a tiny viewfinder? Shouldn’t I have spent those few seconds gazing at the scene unfettered by technology? Wouldn’t that have been more rewarding than a few “likes” on my profile page?

Then I thought about the past. How often had I viewed my kids’ birthdays and concerts and dance recitals through the viewfinder of a video camera? And it’s not just physical images that get in the way, but mental images too. On a recent train trip along the California coast I had stared transfixed out the window at the powerful waves crashing onto the rugged coastline, all the while intermittently looking at my watch and worrying about the logistics of getting to our hotel.

My wife has asked me, “When are you finally going to start living in the moment?” Good question. Too often, while I have been in my Walter Mitty alternate universe, there has been a much better world all around me if I would just open my eyes to see it.

So there, in seat 21E, I made a decision: I realized that even in my mid-60s, I could still learn a new trick. Maybe if I couldn’t book a window seat on my next flight, at least I could try to book a window seat on my life. Maybe as I moved into retirement I could also retire my excess concern with what's to come or what might be in order to better enjoy what’s actually set before me. Heck, maybe I should even take a cue from the couple in front of me and appreciate more the company of the person for whom I buy the window seats!

So, I’ll apologize to my social-media friends in advance because, in the days to come, I may not be posting as many scenic photos online. But you can be sure that it’s not because I have my view blocked. No, this old dog’s not going to miss a thing, even if I have to see it from a middle seat.

© Nick Walker 2021

This story is in the new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Age is Just a Number. More info about it here.

Mt. Adams from my middle seat. (Well I had to share at least one photo, right?)