Blog Post 28.
Tiz and Lucas are outside before six in the morning, ready to take me to the airport. Fifteen minutes later, that’s where we are. I say goodbye to them, wishing we’d spent a little more time together in the past two weeks but thankful for what we had. I grab my bags and head in. It’s seven-thirty in the morning and the plane is taking off. As it does, Sleeping on the Floor by the Lumineers serendipitously plays in my earbuds and I make my customary sign of the cross. Now the sun burns the eastern walls of the frozen buildings below. We fly north by the Sandias.
I thought about the different types of goodbyes we can say. At that point, goodbye and versions of it had become commonplace in my world. I thought about the goodbyes I said weeks earlier in Spain- literal goodbyes that mean “goodbye” and not “see you later”- to the new friends I may never see again. I thought about goodbyes that mean “bye for a couple months” or the one that says “the plane’s about to take off, I’ll see you when I land”.
The flight attendant comes by with coffee. I half-read a book about organizational leadership (thanks, dad). Mostly I think fragments of thoughts.
I was excited. It was an excitement that morphed into a mild fear. Naturally, this led me to feel anxious to get home, but the anxiety was moved aside by curiosity to see what changes coming back would bring. Thinking of coming back, I got to feeling so grateful for all of it. That’s probably when I dozed off. It’s a short flight, so the dozing must’ve only lasted a few moments.
A very short infinity later, I awaken and finish my coffee. Pretty soon, the peaks we follow from above become more numerous and more densely snow-covered. This long string of geological wonder connects the two places I know best.
My two homes holding hands across state lines.
Kulani Sol 