(F)light

A hundred times I've lifted off, a thousand maybe, basic 30-minute skips for a job and long, life-changing journeys that all begin with that rumbling along the tarmac, that first incline that never ceases to seem impossible. I looked down at the Nebraska plains today and wondered again at this little tin capsule full of people drifting across the impressive vastness that is America. Felt again that immense pride of a land that lives within me. The clouds were storybook cumulus puffs today; I remembered an entire childhood of longing desperately to get out of the airplane and hop around on them, feel them spring underneath my step and disappear into the sunset on the horizon. I once drove an hour into the mountains when the clouds were low to chase them, just to feel what they were like but they are forever a mirage, untouchable, they slip like mist through your hands.

The immense awesomeness of the world lies at the surface always. Some days I remember to skim it.