I saw a man reading a hymnal on the plane. There was a rusty sun patch on his chest. There was this French family determined to sit together, asking passengers if they might accommodate.
I saw the haze of atmosphere making an apricot crown beneath the blue universe.
The flight attendant asked: “Pretzel or chocolate?” I had to unbutton one side of my headphones to get the difference.
I’m scared of being “that guy” on flights.
Now the earth below is a brown boulder pocked with lichen. Now this world is admittedly spherical. And it’s a spectacle of a thought, considering how comfortable we are in our zooming cylinder of tin—the passengers in a Nautilus traveling well-explored airways.
But I wonder, every time I fly, if we really understand any of the big, blue empty. Or if these technologies of flight make me forget that I could still fall.
The man keeps reading his hymnal in the sunlight. The French family is still together. And after a few bumps to remind us all the flimsiness of the modern scaffolding, the rest of the ride is a smooth and gradual descent.
I guess we always go down, one way or another.
There is always something lovely amongst the clouds. The sense of grace among the seeming impossibility of being aloft in the heavens.