The lift-off — the climb — the settling in.
The complete presumption that man can fly — albeit aided — but still … fly!
For years I used to be able to fly in my dreams — unbidden. I would flap my arms in some remembered innocent state. Flap hard and climb with my wings and end up above the trees. And then I would glide over the treetops and valleys and swoop down to see rivers and cliffs and then flap hard and ascend again.
I lost my ability to fly about eight, maybe 10, years ago. I have no idea why.
I miss it.
Being in a plane again after 2 1/2 years of not flying was, honestly, thrilling. I was traveling so much before COVID — and I always loved it — but I had become inured to the magic.
This time I loved every minute — the lift-off, the quick climb, the leveling out, and the looking over … everything/everywhere.
I had a window seat — because — life is short.
Flying between Salt Lake City and the Palm Desert to see dear, dear friends is not a flight over cities and towns. It is a flight over the primordial landscapes of the ancients that challenge belief systems.
The waterways are few and far far between … the red rocks and the flattop clouds and the snow fingers that still caress the mountains this time of year, it fills the most jaded among us with awe.
I want to know what distance I am seeing — 100 miles? 200 miles? 500 miles? How far do you see when the horizon stretches in a curved glass bottom fashion? Beyond, the roads melt away and the waterways disappear, and the clouds remain looking like waves ready to crash and head to shore.
Other clouds — are like stepping stones — they cover dozens of miles, maybe more, and yet from my window seat, I think I could step from cloud to cloud to cloud and end up … far, far away.
Sometime on the flight, I become a winged creature again. And I am amazed at my speed covering farmlands and desert and cliffs and rivers with equal ease.
They must be out there, somewhere — the people, cars, buildings, lives of quiet desperation. But I imagine from my perch, joy — great joy in the naked landscape carved over centuries. Looking out my window I feel a rhythm of learning and unlearning and relearning.
In reality, inside the plane, I am seated in front of the crying/kicking baby. The mother is trying hard to muzzle the unhappy child and the father has the other, older child with him across the aisle, telling him all the things they are seeing. And the boy is kicking the seat of the people in front of him.
The boy wants off the plane — even if he, too, has a window seat.
He wants to be doing and running and waving his arms around in the sky that we are also somehow floating in. The parents — just for the record — are rock stars. Aware of both their children — and the people around them. They are deflecting with the finesse of skilled politicians. The children don’t understand the inability to run around but they are soon settled into what we used to, in my family, call “shut-up” food — a cookie here, a candy there, a sip of something bubbly and sweet.
I am so very deep in my window exploration the children are only faint background noise that reminds me of the days taking my own small children — from Reno to San Francisco almost monthly. It was back in the day when we — honest to god — “dressed” to fly.
Now the clouds look like cotton balls all mushed together. So soft and white and I wonder what it would feel like to jump from the plane and land there in that cushion of clouds that are now no longer spread apart but clumped together like a white bouncy pillowtop bed.
The child behind me — under the age of 1 — is talking in a sing-song voice of vowels — it is soothing and somehow vaguely familiar.
Now, we are underneath the clouds — there are shadows, tiny boxes and rivers. It is an artist’s rendering of softly shaped curves — valleys and formations that become snowcapped and eye level. There are farm squares suddenly — neatly drawn. And now roads. The mountains are defined and tall again. The houses have definition — you try to imagine lives inside — and right on cue, the baby behind me is happy, gurgling and speaking gibberish.
And like so many times now, post (ish) COVID, I am left to re-examine simple delights.
Too soon we are dropping and the ant shapes are now visible as boxcars and oil tankers moving along together like a sensuous snake. Next, there are roof lines and delivery trucks, small, like children’s toys.
Bump!
It startles … even with the obvious descent.
Wheels down/smooth runway. Full stop. We have returned to earth, and reality, from our magic carpet ride.
Time to appreciate another Sunday in the Park…
Teri Orr is a former editor of The Park Record. She is the founder of the Park City Institute, which provides programming for the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Center for the Performing Arts. She has been a member of the TED community since 2007 and founded TEDxParkCity in 2009.