A wingtip traces the horizon

Between the clouds
Somewhere over Lake Huron, ON
December 2024
This photo originally shared on Instagram

As the early morning flight cruises above one cloud deck and below another, the rising sun decides to paint the distant horizon in shades of orange and salmon that no camera could ever hope to accurately capture.

Every flight offers up its own unique story through the scratched plastic windows, its own reel of wonder, there for the taking for anyone still awake.

It lasts for a blink, a perfect combination of the weather conditions, Air Canada’s scheduling department, and NavCan’s air traffic control guidance that put this Airbus A321-200 in this exact position at this exact moment. It isn’t lost on me that this moment, where the fences on the wingtip gently trace the glowing horizon line, will never happen again.

As photographs go, it’s a hastily grabbed snapshot. But as I tuck the smartphone away I wonder about all the other magic moments that happen just outside our windows.

Maybe we’re high in the sky or driving across town. Or maybe we’re just hanging out in the house. But there’s no realistic way to take in every last moment that plays out on the other side of the glass. We all have things to do, lives to lead, and precious few opportunities to stare out the window and drink in the view. Inevitably, we’ll miss more than we see.

But despite headlines suggesting the contrary, life isn’t a numbers game, and no one’s keeping score. And in between all the moments when we’re too busy to look out or up - or to look at all - we’ll find those occasional opportunities to witness sheer magic.

We just have to allow ourselves to look out the window every once in a while, wherever those windows might be.

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Looking back while flying away, February 2019

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On a wing and a prayer, again, April 2007