I find myself surveying below, the most gorgeous flight I’ve ever been on. Following the sun over the tops of our glaciers, flyovers of so many small bodies of water. The phase God’s Country enters my thoughts again. Looking down, as we crawl south down the coast you think, will this be here in 10 years? Will the glimmering water evaporate or turn in to small cauldrons, bubbling? Will the sun, so gracefully reflecting off the tops of mountains and delicately highlighting water ripples, find itself by then a relentless scorch across every surface,  rendering them all the same, one dry barren place? Such bittersweetness looking down at all this beauty.

The grid of humans, all their/ our / the footprints of civilization, seen from the air as straight urban lines and agricultural squares, will we be once again turned to dry earth? Will the wisp of clouds, floating past my window deteriorate into the atmosphere, along with our oxygen? And we too, would we be the the first to perish, so fragile but so responsible for the acceleration of our own demise? So unconcerned until the 11th hour rushed in our own fate.

I know I am writing this from above the landscape, sitting in a mode of transportation contributing to our peril. I am conflicted about being able to experience this grand delight in what I see below me. I want to capture this moment in time, and hold it still.

Freeze This.

[Mount Rainier, Mount Adams, Mount Hood]