Travel notes June 2017 –
Today when I left home I felt a deep sense of gratefulness. The RideAustin driver named Ahmed drove silently on 71 west. We crossed the Austin green belt around the 360 exit. The sky was stark blue, a lightening kind of blue and sunshine reflected off the big boulders standing rough on the roads. The canopies of tree clumps on both sides were swollen and solemn. I looked at the few streaks of white cloud, felt the coolness of air conditioning caress my face, I looked at the city I live in and I felt so grateful that I wanted to cry.
Why aren’t we grateful for things like someone driving us to the airport on a sunny day when the trees look tall and smug? When the sky looks limitless? When you know you are in a good moment. The squirrels in my backyard will look for me. The strip of the wooden jetty on lake Austin will quiver in high winds and shake when the jet skis pass by.
Missing and being missed are the two quietest and strongest joys of being alive.
I feel grateful for being in it all.
Travel Notes July 2017 –
Sitting in Chandigarh airport and listening to Adele. Looking up I see the escalator bringing people down. Airports are like life – contains a steady tide and ebb of people. It seems like I have spent a lot of time in airports. Arriving there after saying goodbye to people I love before getting into cars, turning corners while waving to people on balconies, street corners, feeling the lump in my chest, trying to swallow it. Many of those people are not in my life anymore, at least not in flesh and blood. The cremation fire has consumed the hands that waved. But, I still feel them when I leave for the airport. They smile, they wave and they bless me when I step out of the house.
Strangely – sitting in an airport reminds me of family. When you leave for the airport a large part of you remains behind, in dark rooms and closed closets and unseated chairs in the yard.
Life feels like an airport. We are waiting to go somewhere, to be with someone, to leave someone.