Twitchy legs. That’s the worst part about overseas travel to me. I don’t like being up in an airplane over the ocean. When I think about our height, I begin to feel vertiginous. My stomach can drop, imagining a sudden descent. But I can handle fear through distraction. I know if I dwell on the miracle of flight, I can work myself up into terror, so I don’t. I read. I talk. I walk to the bathroom and back. I watch movies. I even try to sleep–every time–and it never works. My worst overseas flight memory is from high school, sitting with my sister and trying valiantly to follow my parents’ coaching to sleep. We shifted positions endlessly. I dropped off a few times, only to groggily resurface to discomfort too annoying to ignore. It was a miserable five hours of sustained effort and failure.

Yesterday I was prepared with all of the props for airplane sleep: eye mask, inflatable neck pillow, boring non-fiction book, and extreme fatigue. It had been a long day of packing and cleaning the house. Our big flight left Detroit at 7:30 p.m. The seat reclined successfully. The headrest had wings, which, combined with the pillow, eliminated head bobbing. My feet were elevated a few inches, resting on the backpack stowed under the seat ahead. Steve was on kid-duty–strategically placed between me and their needy requests. I was set.

All for naught. I reclined and practiced mindful muscle relaxation for a while–until the twitchy feeling in my feet and legs got too unbearable. I don’t know if this is what people with certifiable “restless leg syndrome” experience while lying in bed–but if so, God bless them. It was awful. Margaret suffers from the same feeling. “Mom, my feet just don’t feel right,” she explained after obeying my coaching to try sleep for a while. Our only escape was just to choose a movie and, once again, get distracted.

So here I could review two films: Adjustment Bureau and Admissions (starring Tina Fey). Neither were stellar, but both did their job. I was dutifully entertained. I began the novel that Christina gave me (so thankful for friends!). I enjoyed my dinner, and I switched places so as to become a comfort pillow for the girls on either side of me. I was nauseatingly tired until the two cups of coffee served with breakfast, and then I made it well enough until bedtime in Utrecht, in our new house, at 8 p.m. We slept until 7:30 a.m., and I feel just fine. Airplane travel is a miracle.