I flew to Utah last week to work setting up a show my company is producing. We do what's called 'Business Theater'. It's pretty neat, actually, but the most important part of the first sentence there is the 'I FLEW' bit. Because I don't fly. I am terrified of flying. I haven't flown since I was nineteen, having flatly refused to do so. But this has been a really strange year for me, and a lot of things have happened within and without me. It feels that way, anyhow.

For one thing, I experienced a depression so deep that I really thought maybe dying wouldn't altogether suck. And for another, I got back in touch with my inner teenager who was always a daredevil who loved to ride rollercoasters. Maybe those things don't have anything to do with my brand new willingness to get on a plane, but it feels to me like they both relate.

What's scary about flying, for me, is that you absolutely have no control of what happens. If another plane, or a flock of geese, or a flying saucer, suddenly darts in front of the huge hunk of metal you're riding in, you personally cannot grab the steering wheel and swerve out of the way. You have to let go and accept that you're not in control. And maybe that's something that's been happening to me this year...I've been learning that there are many things I'm not in control of, and working on letting go of my need to feel that I am -- which is by no means a done deal. Letting go is not an easy thing for me.

I've been thinking about what it means to value the life that I have, since I don't feel any assurance that I am going to have anything beyond this one life. I do have hopes for something more than this one, but all I have that I can be sure of is right now. I can let that thought cause me to be so afraid that I wrap myself in metaphorical styrofoam and put myself on an equally metaphorical shelf, and maybe that'll protect me and maybe that's a way to value this life...but when you get right down to it, all the styrofoam in the world (metaphorical or otherwise) isn't going to protect me from all the things I can't control. There are going to be earthquakes and lightning and drunk drivers and unexplained MASSes and war and famine and maybe space aliens. Or more likely, something I haven't thought of, can't predict, and therefore can't guard against. So maybe a better way to value this life is to learn to do what makes sense to protect myself (eat oatmeal, wear my seatbelt), and then let go...and FLY.

So...I flew to Salt Lake City. And it was great - other than the whole having to work the whole time I was there bit. But the flying in, that was great. The place is surrounded by mountains, which were covered with green, red, and yellow blotches. I guess 'blotches' is not a very picturesque word, but I can't think of a better one. The green bits were pretty clearly pine trees, but I couldn't tell what the red and yellow were, except that they were very vivid. Someone told me later that the red was maple trees and the yellow was aspen. I very desperately wanted to get up into the mountains before I left, but there just wasn't any time for that at all. I worked every day right into the evening, and then worked on the last day right up until the shuttle left for the airport. I'm going to have to make another trip out there just to see those yellow and red blotches up close.

Probably everyone else flies a lot and knows all about how things look from an airplane, but I was enthralled. Glued to the window most of the time. The first thing I noticed was that everything looks artificial and very clean from the air, and unusually sharp. It looks like little fake houses and buildings. In fact, I probably wasn't even in an airplane. I was probably in a transporter device where they show this fake film on the windows to make you THINK you're flying, and they don't have the budget to actually include any mess at all in the graphics.

The next thing I noticed, as we got higher - and I was continually struck by this, is how much the surface of the planet is affected by human activity. It's all divided into regular rectangles and circles - parcelled and portioned by roads and borders. This bit owned by this person, and that bit owned by another. I couldn't escape the thought that we're like these big termites just chewing up the landscape. We've infested the whole planet.

Except for the Blasted Lands. That's the name I gave to the large areas that looked utterly unihabited and utterly dead. I'm sure if you're closer, there's plenty of life down there, but from the air, it looked like Mars. In fact, it reminded me a lot of an IMax movie I saw that explored the surface of Mars. It was beautiful and desolate.

There were also entire cloudscapes as well. Before we landed in Houston (where I had a layover), I swear I saw a giant dragon in the sky, plunging up through a huge cloud. It's mouth was open and it's teeth were bare. But the most beautiful thing I saw from the air was a mountainous area where the tips of the mountains were poking up through the clouds, and it looked like the clouds were piling up on one side of the mountain and then spilling over the edges like a giant waterfall. Amazing. And something I would never have seen from the safety of the ground.

Now I can't stop thinking about where else I want to fly off to. There are so many places I want to go and so much I want to see, and I can't help feeling like this whole flying thing has opened up the world for me. I can plan travel now that doesn't have to include days and days of driving. And I can think about going to Europe or Africa as more than a pipe dream. It could really happen.

Wow.