How to Find Wonder in Any Moment

This afternoon, I’m getting paid to sit under an umbrella next to a pool, read books, and write these words in Flagstaff, Arizona.

It’s a spectacular summer day. Upper seventies. A slight breeze. Overplayed but otherwise decent music sounds from the speakers that surround. A couple of kids are shooting each other with squirt-guns in the pool while their moms chat at a table under an umbrella. A man that looks like a walrus is turning red with sun in a lounge chair. Thunderheads grow off on the western horizon, but the sky above is a pale blue canvas.

As I plan to go to flight school this fall, I’m particularly aware of commercial airliners silently drawing white streaks across that pale blue canvas and the smaller planes that buzz by in approach to the Flagstaff airport. I’ve been projecting myself into the cockpit of every plane that passes by. I see myself at the yoke, soaring above those blooming thunderheads on the horizon or lining up with the oncoming runway where I’ll bring an airplane, a flying machine, back in contact with the Earth. What an incredible job for a big-brained monkey: to fly! Humans have been ground bound for quite some time… I find the thought of being a flying monkey downright mind-boggling.