As I drove from Target to Barnes and Noble a plane was preparing for landing, and coasted overhead causing most people to look up and see what the noise was about. I imagine that if you live in Roanoke and are in the Valley View area the sound of a plane is not out of the ordinary, and you'd almost stop looking. My thoughts went from my task at B&N to the flight, and the people on the flight ranging in their arrival as home, business, or pleasure. It has been since October since I was on a plane. This fun fact is not so astonishing to the average person, but for me and since July of 2007, that fact is amazing. The constant go, and return has slowed tremendously from the airport shuffle to more quick car trips, and finally into being here just more often.
I wondered if I could find myself on that flight, what kind of scenario I would choose.
-Would I be a traveler returning home from a grand adventure? Would I see my best friends waiting for me on the other side of security to welcome me home?
-Would I be a visitor? Coming into town for the weekend just to visit, catch up, and enjoy friends before being sent back to my new home and life far enough away that a plane was the only choice of transportation?
I think if I could I would be returning home after some slow days on a warm tropical island... somewhere warm in the day, but cool at night to comfort my sun kissed face, and shoulders. In other moments I want the plane to really be a time machine, an ability to go back to someplace, to someone, or even as someone- the version of me before right now. A handful of moments to fly back to come to mind...
-Arriving in Bakersfield July 27th, 2005. I would love that moment coming off the plane and walking into the terminal- before I knew how it was going to be and I was walking only with the strength of those that love me and a Savior who was holding me up. I think it is one of the few moments in my life that I knew I could not do something on my own, and the only place I went was Jesus. I think often times I have illusions of complete surrender and submission to the Father, but I'm still holding onto my own stress, anxiety, or emotions. That day, and those moments before I met Candace I had purged everything I felt in tears in the night before, and there was nothing left. It was only the Lord. Whenever I think about those three weeks, my heart always begins with the arrival. I can't take a plane to that moment, and I can't relive it... but sometimes I just wish I could, so I could remember how I gave it all away- all of it.
-Sitting in the park outside in downtown San Francisco, September 2007. I had just watched a movie, and went outside and wrote in my journal. I was about to return home in a few days, and wrote what became the blog entry "In A New York Minute". It probably is still among my favorite entries I've written over the past couple of years, and whenever I scan through completed pages of the book I find myself reading that particular part. The end of my time in California was really challenging in a lot of ways, and I often thought of changing my return flight to be earlier then planned because I was just ready. I didn't know that afternoon as I found myself thinking about my return home how I was going to feel on my last day touring the city, getting myself packed up, or what I would miss if I left earlier then planned. That afternoon on the stone bench in a little park in the midst of all things San Francisco, was a day I was completely at home, I was completely at rest in my heart and mind. I loved that day, and I love that I can look back and read something from such a perspective. I knew that the stress of indecision about the future waited, but from that afternoon I went on to have two of the best days in San Francisco all the way up to my last night and morning.
-I suppose I would want more then the two moments I've lived and loved above... I would want my time machine to become a transporter into the future and I would want to arrive at what waits. Even though I would desire my wedding day and to see it, I would never choose it- I understand that I want to be surprised and keep some things sacred... its coming, but I don't want to see it today. I think I would like to arrive at my next home, and see where that home was, and what I did professionally. I would want to see my cell phone and see who was still on my "favorites" list... and if those I can't imagine not being in my life are still among my recent calls and text messages. If I could be on that flight to the future I know that when I got there, I would just want to come back... I know that I would be sad for missing things that made me into who I become.
I also know that by going back and reliving it does not mean I would absorb it and change. I know that the opportunity to give it all away, and render my heart to Christ like I did in Bakersfield in August of 2007 is a decision I can make everyday. I know that it doesn't require trauma or heartbreak to facilitate that surrender... its in each moment, choice, fear, relationship, and desire. Each day. Every day. A new opportunity to do it all again in the only way we can, changing and evolving because of the past that shapes our future, and not because we live in the past and let it define us.
Hang frozen in the air
And sometimes I look right through them
As if they were not there
If you love me, say I love you
If you love me, take my hand
You can say I love you
You can have my hand"
-Lyle Lovett
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