Still Magic

Even though according to American Airlines I’ve flown close to a million miles, it still seems like magic. Yesterday I was drinking coffee in my Southern California kitchen and today I’m sipping it in Chicago.

I usually get an aisle seat, but there weren’t any exit seats on the aisle, so I took a window seat. I figured the extra leg room made up for having to climb over people to get out to use the rest room. When I sit on the aisle, I am reading a magazine before the doors of the plane are even shut. But this time I was glued to the window. I watched the man with an orange stick direct the plane out from the gate. I noticed how the lights along the side reminded me of the lights on the Soaring Over California ride at the California Adventure Disney amusement park. Then as the plane turned, I looked down the runway.

My nose was pressed against the glass as we took off and I watched the city drop away. I had to look fast, but I picked out the Getty museum before the details were lost to the big picture. Suddenly the Santa Monica mountains looked like something on a three dimensional map. The coast appeared and in the distance two of the channel islands loomed in the mist. The plane turned and we flew parallel to Catalina. I could pick out the isthmus of Two Harbors and even see the sun glinting off the water there. At the other end of the island, I just saw a hint of Avalon. Beyond, another channel island rose out of the water. Maybe San Clemente island?

We were higher now and flew back over land. There were mountains that seemed green, then desert, more mountains, this time brown, before more desert. The cool thing was that as I was looking down at all the dun colored emptiness, I could look back and still see the sun shining on the ocean.

I kept looking out the window until it got too dark to see.

It was in the 20s when we landed in Chicago. Definitely winter. It had been chilly in Southern California - even a touch of frost, but most of my marigolds and carnations survived and were blooming when I left. The grass was green from the early rain and the orange trees full of leaves and fruit. The palm trees swayed in the breeze and the sun reflected off their fan shaped fronds.

Not here. The trees are totally bare. Just a bunch of brown sticks, no longer blocking my view of the street or the wintery gray sky.

When I left the grocery store around 3:30, the afternoon was already fading. By 4:30 it was seriously close to dark. In the winter the days are longer in SoCal, but in the summer, Chicago gets the light longer. Personally, if I had a choice of when to have more light, it would definitely be in the winter.

The first snow storm of the season is supposed to come Friday night.

How do you feel about flying? Is it like a magic carpet to you, or do you try to avoid thinking there is just air between you and the ground?