Flights of Fancy

Well, here I go again. I'm in London again, on my way to Spain and more Medieval times. Arriving through Victoria Station was a little surreal. I had passed that way so often in the Fall that, yesterday, it felt as though I had never left. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After wrapping up a few things at the office Thursday, I was ushured to DFW airport by hordes of Coatses and one Powell (Elaine's boyfriend and arch-Bengals fan, Jonathan). It's always a little anticlimactic being dropped off for an international flight; no friend or family can follow you through security and you're left to sit around for two hours by yourself. I was pleased to have reserved a window seat on my British Airways flight--I know, some people find that nine hours pressed against the interior sidewall of a Boeing 777 can be confining, but I love the view. I've never quite understood the travellers who didn't want to see every bit of the trip. I always try to find local landmarks as we climb for altitude. On that clear afternoon, I saw Mountain Creek Lake, Lake Joe Pool and the TCCD Southeast Campus beyond--no kidding! I could make out Southwest Center Mall and Duncanville as we turned east. The next remarkable landmark was the Mississippi River--we passed right over Elvis's home town. By the way, I have my next FDL application. In seven years, I'll apply to float down the Big Muddy on a raft from Hannibal, MO to the Arkansas River, thus retracing the trip that Huck and Jim took. Like them, I'll probably never reach Cairo, Ill.

As was approached Virginia, the plane passed into night. I could see the lights of Norfolk and Washington DC, but more remarkable still was New York City. Outside my window on the starboard side of the plane (that's the "right" side to you lubbers) I could see the entire length of Long Island streatched out before me. Curiously, it didn't glow; the night was so clear that each little point of light seemed to burn with a singular, confined orange color. I was reminded of a pointalist painting like the works of Seurat where each individual point of paint seems meaningless, but when considered in context with the whole, a meaningful canvas emerges. I like to think it's the same with each of us. Sometimes our individual lives may seem to lack meaning, but taken from above, the whole of humanity mingles to create something approaching a work of art. Sappy stuff, I know, but liberal educators who hold out hope for the success of each of their individual students seem to cling to such saccharine optimism.

I held the view of Long Island and its millions for a long while out my window; I couldn't help but wonder what Walt Whitman would have thought (give me a break--I'm an English teacher after all!). Brother Walt would have added a few more stanzas to "Crossing Brooklyn Ferry" or another canto or two to "Song of Myself." But the plane passed on over Canada and out into the bay that leads to the St. Lawrence Seaway. We flew over islands like Nova Scotia, with small towns that spoke in the darkness with their own spidery glows of mainstreet and sidestreet. Tiny islands had little dots of house lights or warfs, and I wondered who lived there and what lives they had--were they some mute, inglorious Milton or some Cromwell guiltless of their nation's blood (now I'm just being self-indulgent--those are phrases from Thomas Gray's "Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard")?

In the emerging dawn, we arrived safe and sound at Gatwick Airport. I rode the express into London and went on to my hotel, the Tavistock, near St. Pancras. But all of that's a story for another blog. Good morning, friends of home. I'm on my way.