Journey

Flying is such a strange experience. For me it always becomes a quiet meditation on the fleetingness of life and leaves me feeling as if I need to squeeze every possible bit of life out of every single moment. It makes me feel reckless with the fear of missing some hidden opportunity. I'm not sure why this comes about - perhaps it is the quiet solitude of traveling- the feeling of loneliness that accompanies long journeys, or maybe it's in the simple act of looking down upon my world with a view that makes everything seem so minuscule and insignificant. Whatever it is though, it's a feeling that I wish I could conjure back while I'm in he midst of life-surrounded by deadlines and to-do lists - where I am so busy doing that I forget to revel in the small things - the things that make life worth living - laughter, kids discovering something for the first time, an inside joke that doesn't end, the leaves turning that deep magenta. I'm not sure why it is in America that we have come to equate a successful life with excess of material things - to the point that our work is allowed to drown out the things that truly feed us. Perhaps I simply need to make a point of traveling more often so as to be reminded of what is important. As Lewis Carroll said - “All that matters is what we do for each other.”