We went flying, finally. It was a plan that hatched in my BU class in July where Nuha was a student. When she first told me she wanted to jump out of a plane, I told her that when I am up in the air I keep the door tightly shut and she would not be able to jump, but that I’d take her up. Nuha was not fazed by the fact that I had crashed a plane 16 months ago. 
I picked her up at the Manchester train station in the early afternoon, just when the cloud cover began to thin out. We walked back to our house, admiring the trees, blazing in their oranges, yellows and greens along the way. It is nice to experience the New England fall with someone who comes from the desert. Our neighbors have an apple orchard that borders our driveway. I took Nuha there to pick an apple, straight from the tree, and then we ate it, another miracle.
At Beverly Airport I showed her my own damaged plane, waiting forlornly in a corner of the airport for the adjusters’ reports to come in. We got to fly in 3152K, one of the newer airplanes, which is much less noisy than mine. We first flew to Manchester and circled above the house where Axel was trying to attract our attention with a mirror. Everything looks so much different from above. Nuha had asked me why I wanted to go up and fly each week. I told her to wait and see and that she would understand once we were up in the sky; and she did. After we landed she did not need to ask the question again.
We flew over Plum Island and admired the pattern of the Ipswich wetlands with its meandering creeks that drain the land at low tide. We circled over the Topsfield Fair, still crowded on its last day, and then back via Essex to Beverly for a perfect landing.
Back home the clouds had cleared entirely and we had tea and a late lunch on the beach. We picked more apples and Nuha took the camera trying to capture all the amazing vistas and colors, to take back home with her when she leaves for Saudi Arabia in January.
We cooked a Bangla dinner together and Nuha got to cut the chard straight out of the garden and prepare the homegrown potatoes. It was a delightful dinner preparation for me as everything was new and out-of-the-ordinary, nothing taken for granted (“what, you are getting the lettuce for my sandwich from the garden? Can I come?”).
After dinner I drove Nuha back to Cambridge and we talked about how unsettling it can be to find yourself in a current that takes you away from the familiar lands into a vast body of water with no land in sight for a long time to come. I had bought the book The Peabody Sisters for Nuha some time ago, a challenge and a half to read with its 500 or so pages. But I thought it would interest her to read the story of a woman who, at exactly her age, 100 years ago and growing up in a place that has some characteristics of Nuha’s current hometown, managed nevertheless to put her stamp on a field that is close to Nuha’s heart, education, especially for girls.
Sylvia's Journal 
Hi there,
Its me Nuha’s friend from Saudi Arabia ..
I really appreciate taking Nuha in this amazing trip
She needs it baaaaaaaadly 🙂
thanx for taking care of her …
Very interesting trip- wish we were with you Nuha!
I loved that you had the chance to eat an apple that you’ve just picked, and enjoyed an amazing dinner.
Can’t wait to see the photos.. and you never know, we might one day get to share the same experience 😉
You’re lucky to have such a great professor!
Salams/Peace!
This looks so amazing…I feel as though I’ve vicariously gone on this lovely trip with you guys. The pictures are extremely beautiful–I have no words to describe the magnificence captured in the photos…The earth looks so different from that high up, that far away. It looks much smaller, much easier to deal with, and much more tranquil.
And it’s really cute that you guys had a fully homegrown dinner! Sounds healthy. 🙂
May you two always be close. I know that Nuha will definitely take this memory back with her to Saudi, and that the feeling of flying will pick her up whenever she gets too drawn into everyday problems or the tiring routine of mundane life. May God keep you both.
Love,
Ola (another friend of Nuha’s…) 🙂
Thank you Ola. More pictures on my facebook page. Enjoy.
Dear Sylvia,
No words can describe the happiness, gratitude, and love that surrounded my heart during our magical colorful journey, not even words in Arabic!
Starting with the colors of the fall that were painted gradually on the huge trees on the way from the station to your house…Being greeting by Axel’s warm welcome, and ending/starting with the iron gate of that little airport.. Everything made me feel like Alice in Wonderland: very ready for a journey full of beauty and amazingness..
Everything seemed very beautiful, but most importantly very peaceful from up there.. The trees, the ocean, the sands, and the clouds.. I felt that all my fears and stresses were very small and insignificant.. and that the whole universe is nothing but a single united entity in which everything is connected, that is eager to help making our dreams come true, if we only knew how to unlock its codes correctly..
Walking on the beach and cutting up the vegetables from your garden was a very opposite act from flying that made me realize that I’m back on our lovely earth, touching, smelling and tasting the beauty that I was gazing at from a distance only moments ago…
I love being with you..flying with you.. and learning from you.
Thanks for being my mentor.
Nuha, you are a poetess! We’ll go on another trip so you can see a winter landscape, beautiful and peaceful in a different way.