A Taste for Adventure, Anik See

Seeing the plane pass overhead yesterday reminded me of this ...

Right now I'm sitting on a dock on the Rideau Canal in eastern Canada. I'm looking up, and in the sky there is the shiny glint of a jet airplane caught in the sun's grasp, pushing silently east; I'm thinking, there are four hundred people going somewhere else.

I'm hoping most of them realise the freedom of being 38,000 feet up and headed somewhere new. I want everyone on that plane to be on their way to a place they have always wanted to go - maps already perused and worn in the folds from curious fingers following streets, emergency cab fare handy in a coat pocket - but intending to walk everywhere, to soak everything in.

I want everyone to have already envisioned the park bench or alleyway or restaurant where they will sit or walk or close their eyes and taste something they have never tasted before and realize that they are finally here, that they have been waiting for so long and they are finally here.

The prospect of others experiencing a culture new to them, no matter how shiny or raw, makes me dreamy. Wouldn't that be something? A planeload of people going somewhere they've always wanted to go, doing something they've always wanted to do.

Jumping.

Anik See
from, A Taste For Adventure