I’m heading home on an airplane tomorrow morning. Which is a little concerning because I still don’t believe that flying is science. Usually you’d only want to sit in a big metal tube if it were on the ground, because things tend to fall when they are in the air. But out of all the times I’ve flown before, we haven’t fallen out of the sky yet. Thank goodness.
My flight Monday was an adventure. Nothing really happened about it or anything, but as usual, I found myself holding my breath a little when we took off and landed. I actually do love flying, but it also makes me nervous.
What was different about this flight was that I randomly remembered as we were landing that I love flying so much! Even though I get a little nervous. If you don’t take it for granted, flying is an absolutely amazing and thrilling experience. It’s crazy, right?
And once upon a time, when you did something like fly, you’d be wide-eyed in-the-moment absolutely blown away. You’d be on the edge of your seat gazing out the window in awe.
On some flights you can look down in the sunshine at the bright white blanket of clouds below. You can see the weird shapes and patterns. They look so real, like you could reach out and touch them, or lay in them, and they’d be soft, comfortable.
On one flight we dipped below one thick bed of clouds only to find another directly below us. I don’t know the meteorological term for that, but it was so cool! You couldn’t have seen us from above or below, but we weren’t in the clouds, we were in this quiet little gap, miles wide in either direction. I don’t know, maybe that’s not that cool. But it also kind of was.
That brings up a great question. Are all these simple little beauties and adventures in life actually beautiful and adventure worthy? I think that the adult in us would argue that they’re not. That “we’ve seen this so many times.” That “there are more important things.”
Some of us tend in the opposite direction. “This is the most profoundly life-changing and moving thing in my life! I must take pictures and tell everyone that this is the most profoundly life-changing and moving thing in my life. I must explain to others why this is so meaningful and why they also must be moved by it.” #guilty #alsonotguiltybecausethisalsoisaworthwhileactivity
Sometimes the adult in us isn’t wrong. Sometimes circumstances can’t help but distract us from the fascinating world all around us. And sometimes the other kind of adult in us, the one that needs to prove and share why everything is beautiful and epic and work really hard on being happy and spreading happiness–sometimes that adult is also right and helpful and exactly what we all need.
But sometimes–sometimes… maybe even a lot… there are just lots of little adventures all around us that we can just live in. Live in without ignoring, but also live in without analyzing, live in without justifying, live in without documenting, live in without discussing, live in without trying about it. (I know that doesn’t make sense, but read it slowly.)
I honestly think a lot of the adventures all around us lose their enchantment when we try about them… try to analyze, justify, document, discuss. Kind of like my little experience in the clouds that was so much more fulfilling when it was just me with them in the moment, instead of me writing a blog post for you about my thoughts about them. Yeah.
So where is all this rambling going? I guess I hope you’re inspired to do 2 things:
First: Find the adventures all around you. Open your eyes. Look closely.
And second: Just BE in those adventures. Let them be what they are. Just bask.
What adventures have you found today? Don’t tell me. Just enjoy. :)
