There is a mixed feeling of awe and sadness when I look out the window of a plane as it takes off into the air leaving behind the ground below.
The awe is amazement for the technology that makes flight possible in a big chunk of metal and a mass weighing hundreds of pounds somehow soaring in the atmosphere above.
Thanks to this technological advancement that we often take for granted in today’s world, we are able to see different lands, experience new cultures and share in humanity with those we may never have known existed before. The expansion of our world views is awe-spiring.
Then, there is the sadness. The land and constant world below continues to move and function even after I am no longer in amongst it. It is a reminder of my insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe. It is a realization that the connection of the moments and experiences in the space below is either cut or temporarily suspended.
Somewhere deep inside is a well of sadness and confusion in this mix of emotions.
Many years ago a similar chunk of metal lifted me into the skies and severed the unknown ties I had in an eventually forgotten world below. It would be twenty or more years before I would touch upon my native soil again. Yet, I will have taken many more flights that transported me from one place to another in those years increasing my awe and further burying the sadness within.
It is the understanding that I am able to return someday and a willful naivety that allows me to say that I will be back again – but probably won’t.
Emotions swirl between excitement for a possible return and a sad knowledge that the likelihood is slim.
Yet, there are some places that do draw me back.
Despite having seen a significant amount of Japan, I keep returning. Even with a mixed relationship with my birth country, I go back as a visitor but never as a countrywoman. Obviously, I see my loved ones in the country that I identify most with although I have no intention of ever returning to it full time.
In these cases, familiarity does not breed complacency, but complexity.
Perhaps this is the way of life – finding acceptance in the in-between of these conflicting emotions that remind us of our insignificant humanity in an amazing world.
~T 🔥🐉♋️
PS – pics and updates on my trip to come…
