Beginnings

I awake to lightning.

Along the distant horizon storm clouds are gathered high, sharp nimbus shaped outlines flickering inside them. I spend a moment searching the upper sky for a sign of the fabled lightning sprites that can sometimes be seen in higher altitudes above storm clouds, it is an electromagnetic phenomena that is said to bloom above the especially intense lightning storms like massive ethereal flowers.

But finding nothing I turn from the window and activate the screen in the seat in front of me and a map our projected path appear. We diverged from our course as we passed over the Himalayas. Looking out the window I can guess at the reason.

Outside the storm rages on, seeming to engulf most of India.

A pair of blinking light moves through the night bellow us, another airplane dodging the storm. Its minuscule size lends perspective to the immensity of the landscape underneath. The land below is speckled with scattered lights from lone farms and villages. People live there, by almost every light a family is sleeping… It is hard to grasp their numbers. The airplane seems so tiny, fragile when compared to the scope of things outside. As if a rouge wind could swipe us out of the sky. Yet they traverse continents without issue every single day.

I start to drift away into slumbering thoughts.

I think back to our take off, to how the highways of Istanbul had seemed to flow through the night, pulsating with light like humongous golden arteries. And after the city, how the myriad of little pinpricks had ebbed out towards the horizon where their light had seamlessly merged with that of the stars and seemed to climb past the rim of earth and into the sky.

I think about a little boy in Italy and yesterdays tear filled goodbye. He has a new au pair now, I went to see them earlier this week. It felt nice to revisit old memories, some things change and others stay the same. I think of my friends and family back home, so far, far away. I think of a friend still ahead of me, one I haven’t sen in years. A long ways off still, but getting closer every second. Somewhere in the middle of my musings once again I nod off.

When I open my eyes next time, the world is made of clouds. Layer upon layer of vapor, all floating on different winds. Some are towering like mountains and plateau off when they meet the limits of the stratosphere, some are gentle, flat and fluffy things that conceal the world bellow us. Dawn has risen and everything is bathed in a soft yellow light. We fly through a cumulus and for a moment all I can see is the haze.

When we reemerge there is a hole in the cloud cover and through it I can see a meandering river, its wide swell still curling about even as it spills out into the Indian ocean. It is not long now until I arrive in Bali.

The journey has been long by modern standards, all in all about 20 hours to cross the worlds largest continent. But behind that lies months of planning and the dreams of a lifetime. I will finally learn how to surf, I will spend a month in a tropical paradise with friends of old and friends I haven’t met yet. Like the curving path of the river far bellow, all my choices has lead me to this moment.

Now Begins my next great adventure...