Misty Ridge Musings

How long since I last flew? A thing I used to do so often, unthinking. Commuting by air as easily as by car. Always moving to and fro, as though never in just the right place.

My last journey was from Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. But that was half a year ago. Six months my feet have been on the ground and they have grown to love it. The ground. Earth. The surety of gravity. Air flowing freely.

I sit in this narrow metal tube. Now aware of how preposterous the proposition of human flight really is. Never will we feel the shear abandon of the bird or bat or butterfly. And so we fly but are always separate from the mystery and majesty of flight. We fly but we envy.

I sit in this narrow metal tube and I wonder, “Where is the air? What will I breathe when the little that is here is consumed? Where is the breeze that carries new air to me? Or the trees that take my exhale and exhale inhales back to me?

How can I survive when my feet are not touching Earth?