My first feeling of a hammock (and its comfortably relaxed underpinnings of fate) was that moment of arrival–the terrific feeling one gets when first landing in a new place–and clearing Immigration after a receiving a vaccine for yellow fever at the airport you didn’t realize you needed for entry because you failed to research all of the entry requirements and the Immigration Officer (kindly) informed you there was no way you could enter the country without it, but waited another suspensefully pregnantly-paused half of a minute before also informing you that you could quickly get one about 25 yards away for 20 bucks, so there was about a 30-second interval where you thought you were completely screwed and going to be playing Tom Hanks from The Terminal, but you lack the acting chops or credentials or Hollywood film crew to avoid making it anything other than awkward.

But you are not screwed. You are not Tom Hanks. And you definitely are not Chet Hanks (though you may have his performance credentials). You are now immune to yellow fever. You have the necessary yellow card telling the world just that. After getting the vaccine in less than ten minutes, you have quickly cleared Customs and Immigration. And you have the magical feeling–the first feeling of the hammock we were getting to above–when you arrive in a far-off place after experiencing the magic of air travel: to be someplace so distant and so different so quickly feels absolutely wonderful and surreal.

Every time.

At least it should. For how fortunate are we to be able to hop on a plane and travel a great distance?

Very fortunate.

After all, how many people throughout human history have experienced the luxury of that feeling?

The great majority never could. And none did–at least not across the Atlantic–before Captain John Alcock and Lieutenant Arthur Whitten Brown as the Brits must have been getting a little tired of ruling the sea themselves with their Royal Navy and whatnot and wanted to switch up the superiority complex a little bit.

Whatever the case, flying across the Atlantic must have felt like a hammock, I daresay, in comparison to a voyage of days packed in like sardines to the ship’s lower deck–or even in a first class cabin where Leonardo DiCaprio steals your girl before your ship literally hits an iceberg, evidently so fate can help Celine Dion reap massive profits at the other end of the century. #Bookends #Parallelism

Good if you’re an Epic Records exec, I suppose. Bad if you’re a middle schooler at that time and have to hear two hours straight of bad “My Heart Will Go On” renditions in what will be a good preview of drunken karaoke nights* fate will direct you to in the future when hammocks are not around to guide you and your fate to softer (better) sounds.

Fate, after all, is largely about perspective–like Dion and DiCaprio looking out of their respective plane windows when they fly over the Atlantic below where the poor, dead iceberg-crashed souls lay at the bottom, of (and on) whom sharks and other sea life built a feast–and the singer and actor, respectively, built a fortune–or two. Yes, it certainly feels more hammock-like to fly over the Atlantic with riches than lay at the bottom of it dead. Hard to argue with that.

Even now, the majority of the non-record label-executives and global pop star sensations in this world do not have access to such a feeling of plane travel for economic reasons. They simply cannot afford the ticket or do not have the passport or associated travel documents to allow entry into the potential destination.

This is not a call to do as Dion and DiCaprio may have hypothetically done in previous paragraphs and look down on those not so fortunate. Nor is this a call to feel good about our own lives because some others are less fortunate. No, this is simply to recognize the magic of air travel. To feel gratitude. To recognize how lucky one is to cross the Atlantic in one flight. That is a magic no one should ever lose sight of.

Unless we are actually currently crossing the Pacific in one flight: then we should focus on that magic.

Or you are watching a David Copperfield special, in which case you should focus on that magic.

Or you are watching the great up-and-coming gunslinger Paul Skenes throw 100 mph fastball after 100 mph fastball, in which case you should focus on that magic.

People pre-air travel must have certainly thought the possibility of flying was magic, just as baseball fans pre-Paul Skenes must have thought throwing 100 mph fastball after 100 mph fastball powered by an amazing mustache was magic, just as less imaginative readers (not you, Dear Kind Intelligent Reader–but some less-educated others who aren’t even reading this and instead indulging in the gluttony of the Other Internet) may think that the idea of a hurricane-resistant hammock is as magical as a flying apparatus.

But if we are so fortunate to travel by air and feel gratitude for the existence of planes and hammocks, enjoying that moment, relaxing in it, savoring it was my first hammock-like experience. The base of the first mini-metaphorical hammock.

Ideally, such a feeling is punctuated by some local fare.

This is called Red Red and it was delicious. The right amount of spicy.

I washed it down with a local beer. The right amount of fermentation.

*the return to the edge of adolescence is the hope that beats eternal in the heart of every drunken karaoke performer.