Over the Rainbow

I love airports: they are one of the magicalest places I know. Where else are there so many possibilities? Walking down the hallway, there are doors a person could step through and magically end up in Denver, Detroit, Atlanta, Tampa, L.A. or D.C. Not to mention Paris and Oklahoma City.

I love watching people in airports. They are usually hurried and bored, but I can imagine interesting things about them all. In BWI I stood up to walk around and get a drink, and when I came back, my seat was gone. The elderly lady sitting next to her overalled husband looked up from her baby blue crochet, smiled at me and patted the seat next to her. We talked.

I love airplanes, too. They are one of my favorite property-things; even though they are not substantial, they almost seem to have an essence of their own. I sat in row 5, counting the individual rocks on the pavement outside. The engines came to life beneath me, and I caught their excitement, drawn into their passion, impatient to fly. It occurred to me that airplanes are rather like people, with the coach area being the belly, the passions. But it was alright, because we the passions were controlled by reason in the pilot. I was happily trying to finish up my comparison and remember the third part, when the pilot’s voice came over the system. "Welcome to our flight to…" he cut off for a minute, and I was about to decide it was a glitch in the sound, when his voice returned… "Memphis." I laughed at my metaphor.

Just west of Memphis there are strange squiggly lines on the ground that reminded me of Dr. V.; I wondered if they had anything to do with communications from outer space.

I saw a thunderstorm from the air: a flashing silver thread of electrical energy, a rainbow underneath me. "Oh, let me dance on rainbows..."

And I read Chesterton, on the magic of repetition in nature; the marvel of the beauty and humor of the cosmos; the smallness and greatness of man. I looked out the window and saw he was right.