If you time a westbound flight at just the right part of the evening, during just the right time of the year, then when you jump above the clouds you can bear witness to the glory of nature in its most majestic splendor. With the sun setting in front of you, and it already set behind you, looking out the window you find yourself straddling a line of time and space, coasting in limbo across a beautiful and perpetual dusk. The sun itself invisible, you see a band of warm sunlight laid out across the clouds ahead, which melts away into a cool blue darkness behind you. These are the images meant for the sweet smells of lilacs and cardamom. These are the moments to be underscored by a quiet Chopin solo.
As you fly in pace with the drift of day into night, you are stuck in a moment constantly experienced by masses below you. You are the ring-bearer for the marriage of sun and moon, and the herald of impending sleep. To call it striking would only undercut its ability to inspire awe. This is the reward of flight, the gift of the birds and the wind, for whom this lingering instant is but a part of the day. If you wanted to, you could fly along this midpoint forever, coasting around, following the sun in circles, perpetually stuck in a moment of transition. You would be chasing an idea of hope, abandoning an impending darkness. We are all horizon catchers, all dreaming of grasping rainbow ends and mountain tops.
And in a heartbeat you realize you have missed the moment where the strip of sunlight dissolved, too slow to tow yourself along on the suns slippery rays you find yourself immersed in the darkness. Some sense of promise forgotten, some intangible want suppressed. It happened so quickly, that sense of eternal possibility falling off the horizon as the nighttime behind you caught your heels and slowed your pace. You missed the moment in its splendor, with all of its existential implications, because you paused to check out a stewardess’ tits.