Driven by a mix of fear and excitement, I said goodbye to my parents and hurried up the steps. I was fifteen years old and about to take my first ride in an airplane, an American Airlines flight from Indianapolis to Buffalo.
The whole way, I kept my nose pressed to the window, still not believing where I was and what I was seeing. Afterward, I had trouble realizing how fast all of it had happened, or for that matter, how airplanes can even fly.
That first trip was even more special because back then, not many people had ever flown in a plane. It was long before jet aircraft were invented, so planes were slower and flew at much lower altitudes, making it possible to see so many more natural features and landmarks.
Despite being on hundreds of flights since then, those first feelings are still alive and well. Today’s planes fly much higher and people show less tolerance toward those who insist in looking out windows, but I continue to try anyway.
You see, each flight is sort of like working in a laboratory. You never know what you will discover next. In a plane, it’s not only what you can look down and see on the ground, but also what’s in the air as you fly under deep blue skies or through and over clouds, mist, rain, and fog. At night, the black of darkness is interrupted by dots of light on the ground and soft light from stars and the moon. Sometimes, you are surprised by lightning as it erupts from a distant storm.
Many of those visual firsts must be fully enjoyed at the time because so many of them are one of a kind, so special you will never forget what you saw and how it made you feel.
One of the most dramatic examples of that occurred while I was on a Swissair flight from Madrid, Spain, to Accra, Ghana, in west Africa, with an intermediate stop in upcountry Ghana. We had just finished dinner when the plane began its landing approach toward the latter. I blinked in disbelief as I looked down and saw a long camel caravan weaving its way along a road leading into the city, likely arriving from the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. Pulling me in the opposite direction and from the plane’s sound system was the sound of Dolly Parton singing.
Even now and many years later, I remember the goosebumps I felt as those two elements clashed — camels down there as they were a thousand years before and me above them encapsulated and surrounded by mankind’s latest comforts and technology.
Although I’ve used the sky to introduce you to the concept, similar adventures are waiting for you in many different ways, at different times, and in many places. They are unpredictable — slowly unfolding or darting in front of you when you least expect it. It can occur while you stand in your yard to watch an approaching storm or pull off the road to watch a sunrise unfold.
Especially in strange places, like when on vacation, keep your eyes open and your senses tuned to your surroundings. Between the windswept Atlantic and Pacific coasts are the Great Smoky Mountains on the east and the Rocky Mountains in the west plus farmsteads, small towns, and people doing things. Then there is the rest of the world with untold riches for you to discover and enjoy.
All of it takes on a life of its own, not when you merely sight-see, but when you begin to understand the significance of everything and the relationships that exist between and among them.
This world of wonder has always been waiting for “first flyers,” except that now it’s nearly always hidden under or smothered by electronic screens none of which will ever be able to stand in as a genuine substitute for what’s real.
It’s up to you to go, see, and wonder by yourself and for yourself. By a wide measure, that’s the best way for you to truly enrich your lust for living.
