Last night, on a plane bobbing in the turbulence, I was not afraid. And when I realized that I was not, I asked myself, “Why? Here is a time when you might have a legitimate reason to fear and yet you are calm. Is it the wine you had in the airport? Is that you are too tired to care? Or is it that you feel safe here in the dark?”
What I understood was that since I could see nothing out the windows, there was nothing to fear. Now, had I been flying over the Atlantic, I would have been afraid (I hate transatlantic flights–where to land? Watching on the screen I only calm down when I see we are near Greenland and Iceland and then England–land. Can’t imagine going that way down into the cold and cold).
But last night there was just me and the dark and the rain lining up on the window and the wing. There was nothing below to see–no patchwork, no meandering stream, no straight-line highway, nothing. Is it possible that death is our own plane, lighted from within, making its way through the darkness? Or is that a more appropriate metaphor for life?
myfanwy collins 