Somewhere Else

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The other part of traveling is that unless you're home in comfort you spend a lot of time wishing:

Wishing you were somewhere else.

Seinfeld did a bit a long time ago about people wanting to 'get out' and once they're out wanting to 'get home.'

It's true.

We spend a lot of time wishing we were somewhere else.

"I wanna' go home!"

"I just wish this would end!"

But we were bustling through the air at the high rate of speed and as the plane struggled to get through clouds and heavy rain I looked straight out at the storm and it struck me that I sort of liked the turbulence.

I scanned the worried looks on some of the other passengers. We were getting tossed around a bit. The seat belt sign flashed. The captain talked about being through the 'rough patch' in just a few minutes and promised that it would 'smooth out' soon.

Thought about life and God there for a minute.

Of course it would stop.

I always watch the attendants...it's sort of like watching the outfielders go back on a long hit towards the wall...you can usually tell when the fielder has it...and you can judge the turbulence by the looks on the faces of the attendants.

They were calm.

I was calm too.

A couple of the faces around me showed true worry, like the ball was going over the wall.

But what I really thought about was the storm we were in. It wouldn't last more than a few moments. We'd break through it soon enough.

Why worry about it?

(If we didn't, it'd all be over quickly, right?)

And once I looked at it that way, it looked really interesting to me. The clouds were exploding as we just plowed right through. The rain was falling in sheets. We were rocking our way through.

And then it was calm.

I'm not sure how long any of it lasted.

A couple of minutes.

It felt so cool to smooth it out.

"We'll be there in about twenty minutes, folks," the captain said. "The weather on the ground isn't any better, but we should be smooth the rest of the way in."

Twenty minutes.

It would be great to be home again.

Until it was time to head back out to the clouds above.

To the chaos all around.

I decided to stay exactly where I was for a moment.

I found 'Sparks Will Fly' by the Stones on my I-phone.

I enjoyed Keith Richards' guitar riff ripping through it.

Right where I wanted to be...

... for a few minutes anyway.

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