Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Over the clouds

On December 19th of 2013 I was again in a plane in a journey to see my family across the ocean. It began on a cloudy day. As I was already seated and ready for the departure I started to ponder the travel ahead of me. Little time had I for my thoughts since the loudspeakers of the plane started to roar to announce that we were ready for take off. The usual procedure..the security guidelines and all. Short after that comes one of the parts I like for the plane traveling, that is the acceleration of the engines of the plane at take off. I guess I like it because it reminds me of the movies and cartoon I used to watch as a kid, where the characters are pushed against their seats by the power of the acceleration. The plane took off and underneath us in an ever decreasing size started an ocean of houses, streets and cars in a great symphony of motion.

After a couple of minutes we were in the clouds; I though that the experience will be a lot different than that, since from here on earth they seem very soft and peaceful in the blue sky above our heads, dancing in multiple forms and shapes with the wind and the sun. Quite on the contrary, one can not see anything through the windows while one is passing through one of them and, to add to the matter, the whole airplane experiences turbulence during the time it goes through the clouds. It does not take long either, in a matter of five minutes another marvel reveals itself. A sea of clouds, and above nothing but the sky crowned by the sun in the all its majesty, spreading its light through this endless ocean of clouds. I always wonder what it would be to touch this endless sea of clouds, as if they were indeed made out of cotton, where one can lie and bathe on the sun light that shines above forever. It reminds me always to the depictions of angels of the renaissance paintings, where pink-cheeked babies dance coquettishly with one another, as if the would be nothing else in the world for them.

After several hours of flight I took a look at the flight monitor of my screen. We were already close to Greenland and since I was looking forward to see this mysterious island at least from above, it was for me an awaited and sought moment. As we continued to fly, I first observed that the clouds beneath us started to get thinner up to the point where we could see through them, until they totally dissipated as if by magic. I could see the water beneath us, from the height we were flying seem close, although we were not (we were flying almost at 10 Km from the surface); but nevertheless the water seem to remain still as I could not see any wave of movement on the water's surface. As we moved on, I could started to distinguish small pieces of ice floating in the water. They started to increase in size, density and quantity as we continued to fly. I could notice something that looked like a rock on the water together with the pieces of ices floating down there. Then another one and the some others; after them came no more rocks but the beginning of a very steep and spiky chain of mountains. They were partially covered in snow, mostly on the flat parts between them. 

As we continued to fly, the chain of mountains revealed its majesty and pureness, it extended as far as I could see until it met the horizon and continued onward beyond. The peaks started to get softer, smoother as if they were waves approaching the beach, and then it happened, a sea of white color, bathed on the midday light of the sun, infinite, pure and eternal. It seemed to me this time as if we were looking at empty space, at the edge of the world or any other metaphor that is appropriate for such a marvel. Onward we flew, with the dimming sun light above us, shifting from a blinding white to a warm orange in some sort of slowed down sunset, as if the sun had forgotten to set and had stayed to peek over the white sea a little longer. As it started it also disappeared, the whiteness of the land was broken by a rock, then another one and so on until again the sea appeared leaving behind this amazing timeless symphony of the nature. We were again above the sea and and below the sky, lighted not anymore by the sun but by the stars, the face of the creation staring back at us with timelessness and distant memories. So our journey continued, bathed by the night light. Not any light but one of million years and million suns staring at us from distances beyond our imagination, a light we see everyday, that is the one of the stars....