Real Magic

I'm in an airplane leaving Atlanta, on my way to Boston. The stewardess is getting ready to do an in-flight safety briefing that no one will pay the least attention to. In order to avoid eye contact with her I stare at the carpet. Suddenly it strikes me that I am looking at a magic carpet. This carpet, on which sits my chair, on which in turn sit I, this carpet is about to fly and take me far away.

At a given moment there are about half a million human beings up in the sky. They are in pointy cylinders of various sizes. They are all going from point A to point B (sometimes with an onward connection to point C). They are the beneficiaries of a miracle whether they know it or not, whether they appreciate it or not.

How else would you describe flight, if not as a miracle?

When I was younger I often had dreams in which I flew. Sometimes if I tried very hard I could make myself have a flying dream. Unexpectedly I had such a dream last week. I floated effortlessly in the air. I could glide to wherever I wished to go. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to do.

It surprises me that we don't all fall on our knees in wonder at our magical ability to fly. We complain about missed connections and mislaid bags. We don't give thanks that we can vault over mountains, cross vast oceans and speed across endless plains. We don't give thanks that we can nonchalantly complete journeys which just a few generations ago men would embark on not knowing if they would reach the other end alive. How did we become so jaded?

I've noticed that people become very quiet in an airplane. The same people who talk loudly in an airport become strangely subdued once their plane takes off. They start talking in undertones and subdued whispers. I don't think it's deliberate. I think their bodies know that they are doing something amazing and that to ruin the experience with loud voices would be uncouth. Of course, babies are an exception. Babies have no qualms about being loud in an airplane. But then nobody expects any better from babies.

I once flew in a helicopter. I imagine it was a little like being a bee in a flower garden. We hovered and flew, hovered and flew. We savoured the sight of the landscape below us like nectar. We would swoop down close to drink our fill, then flit away to another spot, then swoop down again.

What makes flying special is that it involves transcending our limitations as mere wingless earthbound humans. When we fly, we become like angels. Oh, it's easy to lose sight of that amidst the minutiae of visas and boarding passes. But visas and boarding passes have everything to do with airlines and nothing to do with flight.

Because this is what flying is about...

It's when the you feel the airplane accelerate. It's when you feel the gentle pressure on your body that molds your back to your seat. It's when you feel the rumble of the runway transmitted to you through the wheels. That rumble becomes more and more insistent until it turns into a shock of silence as your plane throws off the yoke of gravity and rises joyfully into the sky.

And that's when you know you've experienced a miracle once again.