Perspective

wing man
Originally uploaded by Rebecca June.

I took this from the plane window, during a trip to St. Louis to visit my friend Maria.

I am always struck, while on flights, with the way cloud cover turns into a surreal landscape, mounds of soft buttercream frosting, a sea of texture and colors made only from air.

Perched up there, the roar of engines create a pleasing wall of white noise that helps force out nagging doubts and paralyzing fears to be replaced by simple wonder.

The sun pours through the double-paned glass, which is still cold to the touch, and warms my face. I squint at the horizon.

I think about all the other people on the plane today -- the man in the white polo sitting next to me, reading a magazine and checking his clunky metal watch every few minutes -- the young family with a curious blonde child who keeps popping his head above the seat to check everyone out -- and I think about their lives. So many strangers on the same plane for a brief hour or so, only to scatter and live their lives, perhaps never to see each other again. So many relationships, connections, dramas, pains, joys -- so, so many stories. Each head containing brains pondering their own conflicts.

Eight million people in this city alone, most of them blissfully unaware of dramas going on mere feet from them on the train or the elevator.

Why should I wring myself dry over my own?