Sometimes
perhaps twice a year, if I am lucky
I sit on a soft seat of a material I do not know
crammed into a row with two or three other people
with merely inches between my seat and the one in front of me
I have no room to stretch my legs
or move at all
and I will stay that way
for hours
one person in a long line
of travelers
and I love it
For beyond the glass of the window
is the sky
a sweep, a swirl
puffy or thin, drifting clouds
bright, blue, blue
and I am with it
not looking up at it, but right there
flying in forever
the earth a patchwork quilt below
and I have a book
brimming with adventure and emotion
in my lap
a pad of paper
if I want to create my own story
in front of me
And I know where I am going
where happiness and laughter and comfort
reign high
My father and I, traveling to his parents’ home
thrill jolts through me at the prospect
Thrilling, wondrous, flying in the sky
It’s different now, but I still feel:
Where else could I feel so free, so me, so happy?
-poem based on the Patricia MacLachlan book All the Places To Love.