She was laughing. The woman sitting by the window in the first row was laughing. I couldn’t tell at first. She was trying so hard to stay quiet. I couldn’t quite identify the sound. I thought maybe someone was playing music without headphones, or maybe the landing gear needed some WD-40. I leaned forward on my jumpseat and peeked across the aisle. She was laughing. Transfixed by the world on the other side of the window getting smaller beneath us, her face turned toward the sky. A ribbon of sunlight rested on her cheek, dripping down to her neck and shoulder. The first outburst of giggles was muffled, like she was trying to swallow her joy. After all, she was surrounded by people who fly all the time. It’s no big deal. Play it cool. Smile, but don’t make a sound. Smile, but don’t be so easily amused. Smile, but not too much.

Yet after a few more moments of watching the clouds slowly roll away behind us, she gave up on trying to hide it. She laughed. Delight bubbled up from somewhere deep inside her and made itself known.
She was in the sky. She was sitting in a chair in the sky. She was sitting in a chair, inside a metal tube that had just launched her and many others over the Earth and there they sat together, in chairs, in the sky. By God, it would not be lost on her. There was no use in hiding it now. The floodgates were open and she was laughing out loud.

Other passengers looked up from their laptops, and tablets, and magazines, and books and over at her.

I fly all the time.

Crooked, halfway, questioning grins. Unsure of how uncomfortable they should be grins. Measuring the reactions of those around them grins.

I fly all the time.

They shared knowing glances, the frequent flyers. They shook their heads and rolled their eyes and looked back down at their devices and things but the grins became smiles and the smiles stayed.

I fly all the time.

The smiles stayed and became softer. They were no longer armor. They were bridges. The smiles remembered what they had forgotten. They became smiles that greet their birthday cake as it’s lowered on the table, glowing and smelling of hot wax and sugar. They were smiles of those who had just seen their first rainbow; who’d caught snowflakes on their tongue. The smiles remembered and reminded them where they were. In a chair. In the sky.

I fly all the time and the woman by the window is laughing.

One by one, they started laughing too. Strangers, laughing together, sitting in chairs in the sky. I was laughing with them. It didn’t last all that long but the feeling did. I fly all the time and it’s a miracle.

There is so much magic and beauty that happens up here in the sky. You probably hear how horrific commercial air travel has become. At times, yes, it absolutely is. But today, and all the days that I share my stories with you, you are going to hear about the beauty. Sometimes it will be happy. Sometimes it will be sad. But I hope you will find it to be beautiful.

This is words elevated. Read, and be lifted.