Sitting in seat 1B was an orange tote bag, too bright in contrast to the dullness filling up the aircraft – as if indicating the owner of the bag who is to arrive momentarily. Her hand reaches out to pick it up. A girl wearing sport shorts and a light blue tank top flops on to the seat.

“How tall are you?”

The moment she settles, she flips her long curly hair to question the passenger sitting behind. I have never in my life heard this question being asked to a stranger on a plane. While her blond curl hit my face, I am instantly awed and hypothesize that this is her method to find a partner, filtering people instantly by their height. Her question is then followed by a big laughter and disclosure that she wanted to recline her seat and if he’d mind.

She stuck her tanned legs against the front wall of the seat. Poured the clear liquor in her steel cup. A decent shake.

My eyes drop down to my book again to focus, when immediately, in my peripheral vision I witness a beige color move up and down. My eyeballs naturally shift to the right, to find a set of index fingers pointing at the ceiling, going up and down, left to right. The owner – the tank top girl – sways her head nonchalantly while making some rather big dancing gestures. As if the world has only two things: she and her music, and no doubt she’s enjoying it.

While the air is filled with the sound of passengers’ frustrated fingers tapping to wait for the aircraft to take off, her fingers are dancing, and there she is, happy.

This may be the first time I have seen an adult smiling on a plane. 

I glance and see the blue background on her Delta App indicating she does not have status and thus, she is not one of the Monday to Thursday business travelers, who receive automatic upgrades from frequent flyer status.

The girl –who is now stacking a package of Thin Oreos, a chocolate biscuit, a banana and some mixed nuts on her thighs, which she politely selected from a usually take-one-only-please snack basket offered from the flight attendant – this girl, is she a student athlete? A trust fund baby?

—

In the pocket of 1B is a bright white book and with cursive letters are the title “The Lost Art of Handwriting”.

Her head is bumping up and down.

I take off my Bose QC35II and ask, “do you write?”

She takes her eyes off the snack wrappers. And I learn about Phebe.

As a kid, she hated how her name is spelled Phebe without an ‘o’ , but now she enjoys the uniqueness. She’s not supposed to eat gluten or lactose. I point at her cookies. She says she knows, and that her driver is going to be mad at her. She works at a hospital. She had to shorten her vacation since she had an urgent check up.

“Check up for a patient?” I ask, feeling sorry for the busy life of a doctor, having to sacrifice a vacation.

“I’m the patient.” she says.

The aircraft is dark and her voice seems to take over the entire space.

She did say she is a doctor, how can she be a patient at the same time? 

She smiles, “I have cancer,”

“And it’s hard being in the medical field, since I learn more about my disease every day.”

—

What are some disabilities you have that no one would be able to tell just by looking at you?

Students wrote their responses on a piece of paper, threw in the middle of the classroom. Slowly, one by one, what started as one piece of paper in the middle, formed into a pile.

You can never judge that a person is fine, just by looking at their appearance. That was the theme of the inclusion activity, and there I was, facing this girl, the most positive person I’ve met this past year, telling me with a grin, that she has cancer.

—

The aircraft is pitch dark. She admits that it took a long time to accept her condition. The slight light from the window is lighting up her face as she smiles, and look at me saying,

“You have to own yourself, ya know.”

I tilt my head, unsure what she is talking about.

“Just like my shoe size is 7, my eyes are blue, my name is Phebe without an ‘o’, I have cancer. Period. Stop trying to fight. Or cry. Stop asking why it’s you who’s getting this.”

“I’m going to lose my hair when I go through treatment.”

My fingers unconsciously reach up to comb through my hair that I grew up with for over twenty four years.

Phebe is looking out of the window.

“It’s hard to admit. And it took a while to fully comprehend. But once you own yourself, your character, your everything, and you say this is me, and you’re going to live with it. And set your mind to something, then.”

A childish grin

“Then you can do ANYTHING.”

And she was. She was living her words. Aside from her work, Phebe journals, loves, and takes neuroscience classes after work at Harvard and MIT.

New York never fails to look breathtaking from the oval windows. Small lights twinkling in the pitch black.

The aircraft is about to land, the announcement says, and the light turns on for the flight attendants to check on all the trash one last time.

I squint, look at Phebe.

She had the brightest red lips with a sneaky smile.

The color red, I exist, I’m alive. It’s screaming.

You own it. It’s yours.