B12. That was my boarding assignment. And A51. And B22. And B35.

I flew on four different planes in the last ten days. That is a lot of flying. I’m not sure how people who spend a multitude of time in airports do it; the shuffle, the lines, the noise, the elbowing your way onto a plane, and into a seat.

Luckily, on three out of four of these flights, my husband gave me the window seat. I still have a child-like awe for feeling the surging engines beneath me as we lift into the air, and later the rushing squeaks of breaks and lurching forward in my pleather seat as planes land. The whole process brings me much excitement. It is the taking off and arriving that is the most fun when flying. Last night, we got on our fourth plane of the week and I spent minute upon minute gazing into the sky as the sun crept into the sleepy horizon, only to disappear in a smear of color.

Remember those crayons that had the red, yellow and blue sticks all rolled into one? If you wrote one way with the crayon, you’d get a perfect line of each primary color. If you turned the wax on its side, the colors would meld into one another. That’s what I felt we were doing in that large metal bird. Racing towards the perfect line of colored crayon marked by the setting sun meeting the end of its day, drawn by our creator, as we inched towards home at rates of hundreds of miles an hour.

I spent a lot of time thinking on this flight, about change, about peace, about family and the beautiful tangled webs that we live in for sustenance, comfort and guidance. I thought about what being an adult means, where kindness lies, and how important it is to send myself reminders of self-love. As we descended into Denver, with darkness outside my window and my head pressed against the plexiglass frame, I noticed slowly, how spots of light would appear through the fog. I could look up above the wing of this plane and see stars and look below to see the lights of our cities slowly ignite their way back in to our presence.  I felt like Peter Pan, dancing through the stars, above the little cities, and our tiny cars, screaming on the way to Neverland. Who wants to grow up? Some days I’m not so sure. I’m doing it though, growing up, and you probably are too.

This week, I was thrilled with the pleasure of the window seat. What beauty can be seen through a small little window as the world shrinks and expands with my change of perspective. I had a friend post this quote on Facebook the other day and I thought this wise person’s explanation of change in beauty related to the way in which we change our perceptions of beautiful things.

“You can know someone who, at first, may be very beautiful. Many days or months or years go by and they are still very beautiful. And you decide “this person is very beautiful!” And you hold them close, want to keep them.
Then, one day, they seem not so beautiful. Maybe even kind of ugly. And for many days or months or even years they are still quite ugly. And you decide “Oh, this person is actually quite ugly!” And so you push away, maybe want them to go or to figure out how to get away. We do this with everything – decide if it is ugly or beautiful – if we will stay or go. But if we practice living from our hearts, if we work very hard, we might realize that the appearance of beauty or ugliness lives in us. That things that were once ugly can become beautiful and things that were once beautiful can become ugly and it all depends on the awareness of our own hearts. Perhaps you have experienced this a little? Perhaps you have loved someone you thought would be eternally beautiful and are a little surprised when their beauty suddenly disappears and they are now repulsive, only to find a few weeks later you find them beautiful again? When we realize that beauty and ugliness are merely reflections of our own state of awareness we can start to work very hard to penetrate through this. Not work hard to find everything beautiful, but to no longer need things to be beautiful in order to love them – for love to exist in us regardless of the external.” Sadee Whip

From the road, a car is just a car, turns into traffic, a gas guzzler, annoying. The road marks our Earth, and lights are said to pollute our senses. From a window seat, though, oh how very different.

Biscotti – none – I made pumpkin bread instead

Essie Nail Polish – Gel Manicure – did you know Essie is doing gels now! What a luxury this little self extravagance was for me.