Flying Through Color

As the Embraer streaked across the early morning sky, the rising sun turned my eyes to the west and the dissolving night. I've been awake for hours, yet the gears of my mind have yet to fully engage. Unwilling to prod it so, I simply allow my eyes to take in what I see, as if looking out the window of my own self.

It is a watercolor moment, with broad brush lines that splay through the sky like beams among the wispy cirrus that strings across the heavens. Contrails from recent passers-by serve as guardrails, as if pointing the way to where we are going. And suddenly, they are gone, just as the dawn breaks forth in full glory, setting the condensing air on fire with rays and shadows bursting with brilliance; I am flying through color!

The upper sky turns from deep navy to dawn's typical blue as we cross 33 thousand feet. Such heights and such lows! A field of clouds comes into view, hanging in the air like a colony of jellyfish: peaceful, quiet, angelic. Looking up again, between the blue and the gray, each swath highlighted by streaks of orange, cuts a dark gray line - a shadow bleeding like an ink stain across the sky. And then it is gone, as if it never was. The faded patchwork below begins to glow with the arrival of morning.

Where are my thoughts this morning, here at the beginning of a week destined to last forever? Of where I am? Of where I want to be? Of what I seem to have? Of what I seem to lack? The sun is shining brightly now through the window across the aisle. It stings a little, but not too much.

But, oh, to fly through color! That I could but capture just a taste, just a shade, to keep with me. Then perhaps I could better articulate the wonder - and the agony - for which I simply have no words.