Oct 14, 2017
The sun blinked out like an old movie slide changing and the light bathing my belly-open book switched gray for a lingering moment. I looked up at the baby blue sky, to the reinstated radiating light, so bright I squinted to make out the plane that had just crossed the sun.
"Do you ever wonder where they're going? I like to think of the people inside, their stories, where they're headed." He asked me a variation of this question every time we watched the planes. We'd eat Chipotle burritos in the parking lot across from the airport, windows down, a little before dusk, watching the metal birds glide in, perfectly aligned like an endless string light reaching out to everywhere. My answer was always the same.
"No," I replied blankly as mixed emotions began to compile. I had shut off the part of me that saw the potential for more than just the average day-to-day "good." A penny on the sidewalk. Nice weather. Simple joys within my immediate surroundings. Getting on a plane to a place where I'd never tasted the food or an ocean separated home . . . no way José! The gap was too big. I felt sad thinking of all the businesspeople hopping around the skies, off to important meetings involving large sums of money. Families closing distances and coming together just for love. People like me who wanted to witness the world so bad it ached. They were the ones who felt the fulfillment of flying, while I watched from the pavement.
Could my heart carry me over the hump of disappointment my mind had used to define me? I wanted to bask in the "good" of everyday life, while re-growing my sight for the extraordinary unseen. Dreams to be realized. Travels to be taken. And so much more "great" than my mind could ever conjure.