Flying to San Diego

Airplane cabins are pressurized but there is still something about the altitude, or the dry air, or seeing the world so far below that elicits a magical feeling.  Suspended in air, between time zones, hundreds of miles from familiar places, dislocated from the earth, reference points fade away and one's life, the lives of others, the state of humanity, appear small and compact, and sound in longer phrases.  Some things become so clear just as they lose their edges.  The past and the present meld and give some meaning to the current direction; it seems a seminal experience to fly every so often.