Look up

I've traveled a lot in my day, and was fortunate that most of it came when upgrades were still plentiful and First Class meant something.  The life seemed glamorous to people looking at it - as opposed to those who lived it, who while the appreciated the quality of the wurst in the Lufthansa Senator Lounge, knew that it was just grabbing a quick bite on another if-it's-tuesday-it-must-be-Brussels business trip.  Another trip away from the family.

But every once in a while you find yourself in one of those moments when you realize at the time that you'll remember it years hence.  For me, it was a drive up the Neander thal (yes, that one), a bunch of random Germans showing me around their home city one weekend, and a particularly interesting conversation with a Flight Attendant in First Class on Air France.  He and I were the only ones up front on that flight to Stockholm, and it was intellectual mano a mano in a most enjoyable and memorable way.

But I never did a trip like Brigid did, nor did I ever write about it like she just did.  This is perhaps her best post ever, and you know what that means.  And she ends with this, which every traveler has engraved on his heart - but which few of us can give words to:

Nothing you wish for is easy, something I always told those that wanted to learn to fly but put it off saying they were too old, or didn't have the time or the money. If there's anything I have learned in life it is that. That love does not exist just in one place and in one instant and in one body out of all the time you have, all the bright light and streaming sky of your life, it is there, waiting for you, with no price tag but your happiness. It's within your reach if you just look up.

She should put some of these together into a book.  I'd pay cash money for a hardback first edition of that.