Flying & Blogging

My flight from Denver was delayed an hour and a half and way oversold. When the gate agent finally handed me a boarding pass, I took a deep breath and walked out to the waiting plane. Row 14. Seat B. Right in the middle. Our 10:30 take-off was smooth. I slept for a bit, watched the end of "Lyrics and Words" and read the in-flight magazine. We arrived in Seattle to light drizzle and mid 40s. The train wound around underground to the main terminal and I made my way to baggage claim. I walked out into the cold air to wait for my husband. It's illegal to smoke so close to public buildings in Washington, but cigarette butts littered the sidewalk and the damp air was permeated with the scent of stale smoke. For all its unhealthfulness, there is something oddly homey about it. I watched cars dance their way through traffic on the arrivals drive, the flashing lights and occasional sirens from Port of Seattle police cars impatiently commanding drivers to keep moving, no parking allowed. I was asleep moments after hitting the pillow.

I hate flying and travel stresses me but I love it & cannot live life without it. Something about flying reminds me of blogging. Millions of people move through common space in relative anonymity. Polite nods to the people in Seats A and C, maybe a bit of chit chat, the flight attendant moves the details to the overhead bin. Each passenger with their own life and story, possibly talked about but rarely for the sake of forming real relationships. Anonymity with a name - maybe real, maybe not. It's a curious thing.

©2009 Mindy Danylak

Borderlands

there is a place
beyond the border
where love grows
and where peace
is not the frozen silence . . .

to get to that place you have to
go or be pushed out
beyond the borders,
to where it is lonely, fearful,
threatening, unknown.

only after you have wandered
for a long time in the dark
do you begin to bump into others
also branded, exiled,
border crossers,
and find you walk on
common ground.

it is not an easy place to be,
this place beyond the borders.
but it is a good place to be.

Kathy Galloway
(the above is an extraction - see first comment below for the full piece)

I and You

Yes, I come from another country,
To your world I can never belong.
Tinkling guitars cannot please me,
I want a wild desolate song.

I do not read my verses in drawing-rooms
To black-coats and dresses like shrouds.
I read my verses to dragons,
To the waterfalls and to the clouds.

I love like an Arab in the desert
Who flings himself on water and drinks,
Not like a knight in a picture
Who looks at the stars and thinks.

I shall not die in a bedroom
With a priest and a lawyer beside me.
I shall perish in a terrible ravine
With a mass of wild ivy to hide me.

I shall not go to a Protestant heaven,
Open to all in tidy blue skies,
But to a place where thief and publican
And harlot will cry: 'Friend, arise!'

Nikolai Gumilev
(Translated by V. De S. Pinto)