Fireworks, as seen from high above

By time this posts, I'll be on my way to Oregon, flying there - erk, hate flying. My Secret Graces manuscript should be in the inbox of my publishers. As I write this, I am just days away from that-since, as I've told you all, I'm scheduling posts to go up automatically so I an finish my deadline. I'm using posts from the Year of Gratitude blog(or Grog). So, I picked one where I'd flown to Oregon and back home one summer:
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Flying from Portland, Oregon, where I’d visited my son, back home to North Carolina, what luck! I had the two seats all to myself, a relished luxury I appreciated. Exhausted from my trip, I dozed, and when I again opened my eyes, colors ripped through a charcoal-threaded darkening sky. As it became full dark, I watched the towns below light up. Those lights signaled life and people, some crowded and full and others tiny dots of tiny towns. Behind me, two women spoke a foreign language, a lyrical beautiful sound. I lay my head against the cool glass and listened to a conversation I could not understand. But then, what is this? With a flashing burst of color, the woman and I were linked. Together we whispered in awe, "Fireworks…"

Below us the colors burst in a raining arc. A town celebrating! I imagined a parade; hotdogs, hamburgers, big salty pretzels, cold cokes that leave their burning feeling in the back of the throat; the high school band playing badly but no one cares, for the little town has sons and daughters marching; and the fathers with small children on their shoulders, bouncing them up and down, pointing to floats and clowns and bright-colored confetti; and then as the evening darkens, the first burst of colored light blazes in the sky with a Boom!, and the sighs and oohs and aahs of the people follow. The bursts become faster and bigger and louder, and that is when our airplane passes over, when the lyrical music language behind me is understood in sight and in sound. Within all of our unknown words is our uniting: Fireworks!

I pointed with my index finger, the pad pressing against the glass. Our shared experience, the link of our language from the image below. Then, together, we repeated, “Fireworks..." I never want to forget. It was the only time I was grateful to be flying in a tin can high above my Earth. I blew a kiss to the town below, thanking them for sending us their message, one that linked people together in the language of joy and color and blazing sparkled light.


(this is a reprint from the YOG-year of gratitude-today I'm flying out to Portland!)