By Claire Longhurst
I have wandered the ancient streets of Rome. Visited the canals and museums of Amsterdam. Boated on Lake Geneva. Marvelled at the Chagall stained glass windows in Zurich. Sipped hot mulled wine, meandering the stalls of the Christmas market in Mainz. Sweated out Octoberfest in Munich. Basked by the pool in Santiago. Splashed in the Mediterranean off Barcelona and Tel Aviv. Fallen in love in Paris. Found out why a danish is called a danish in Copenhagen. Savoured the fresh fruit in Bogotá. Picnicked on Primrose hill over looking the skyline of London. Quiet in the gardens and temple in Narita. Driven around Delhi with a monk. Overwhelmed in Beijing. Regaled myself on mussels and waffles in Brussels.
... going places.
At 39,000 feet suspended over earth, comes a certain stillness and another perspective.
From this height the earth’s horizon curves. A thunderstorm appears as a play of flickering diffused light, like a great silent firefight. A break in the clouds reveals a container ship lost in the sweeping ocean. As the sea and sky become one in darkness, hundreds of tiny beacons appear, each one the light of a fishing trawler. Icebergs and floating pack ice form the thousands of pieces of an immense puzzle. A tiny boat amongst the cracks. A very long pier juts far out from an arc of rugged islands born of a mass of jagged cliffs. A stone wall clinging impossibly to the crests of mountains winding itself like a giant snake. Across a vast flatness thread-like paths converge on remote wells. Soft white hills of hardwoods caught in the depths of a frigid winter roll out as far as the eye can see. Almost indiscernible at first, a thin line weaving along a frozen river...a road...straining to see what it’s there for, a mine, a town, any signs of cultivation but apparently it’s going to and coming from nowhere.
What a nice place to be….
.... coming from and going nowhere. Space
Claire Longhurst is in her 30th year working for Air Canada as a flight attendant.
