I first discovered I was susceptible to motion sickness as a pre-teen riding the Gravitron at the Seattle Center. Any ride that spins you around in circles fast enough to be able to drop the ground out from under you and still have your body glued to the wall due to sheer centrifugal force can not be good. And indeed, I remember that nausea twenty years later.

And then there was my first flight since I was a toddler, Seattle to New York, on a 7th grade class trip. All I remember was dry heaving in misery and my 12-year-old friends drawing pictures for me on their barf bags. And being made fun of on the bus ride into the city by a fat kid in my class whose last name was the same as a type of cow.

Since then, I always travel with Dramamine. With all the flying I do, I should consider buying stock. It works, mostly. Except for that time in college, being rerouted through Denver on the way home from Nicaragua. I don’t know what was worse, the miserable landing or the fact that I had to sleep in a water bed that night. Blech. Or that time a few years ago when we flew in a puddle-jumper from New York to Boston and after bad turbulence during the landing, I was so sick that we had to sit for 15 minutes in Logan Airport with my head between my knees.

Or perhaps, the worst turbulence I’ve ever encountered was flying back to Hamburg two weeks ago from New York. The first 45 minutes of the flight were unbelievable. You know when the pilot tells the flight attendants to fasten their seatbelts that it can’t be good. I was gripping my arm rest with my left hand and mein Schatz’s hand with my right. With each drop and bump I could feel myself sweating and my stomach moving into my throat. I could hear the rustlings of vomit bags and people dry heaving in the seats around me. And after it was all over, we still had seven hours left of flying.  I drank a lot of ginger ale that flight.

I am telling you this because I am sitting in the Newark airport waiting for my flight back to Hamburg. I just arrived from New Orleans and my stomach is uneasy from a really rough landing. I’ve done all I can to settle it and am really hoping that the take-off will be smoother.  Cross your fingers for me, won’t you?