The flight path.

Recently, I realized that we live pretty much directly under a flight path for Salt Lake International Airport. I realized this, because I spent much more time outside, a lot of it looking up, evidently, especially in the mornings and the evenings.

This reminds me of the time a few years ago, when I made an unfortunate wrong-airport ticket purchase on my way back to American from Scotland. This error necessitated the hiring of a driver to take me from Gatwick to Heathrow, which, by the way, is not as simple as it sounds. Pro tip: don't do that. I did, however, get this benefit: the driver, who knew the back roads of that small city, Heathrow, like a native, showed me how the planes stacked up, waiting to land. Even in the sick winter haze, I could see more than ten planes in the air, lined up, waiting waiting waiting for the signal to land.

This evening on my walk, I saw as many as four planes in a holding pattern, right above me. If we lived a few miles further north, it would be awful--so much noise and so constant--but where we are, we can see the planes clearly without too much engine roar. Holding holding holding, then each in its turn, surging forward. Then the next one, and the next.

Holding, holding, holding. Then the next, and the next, and the next.

I won't spell it out for you--that would be gauche--but this is a metaphor.

Well, hello. For better or for worse, I'm back.

Blessing.

Today was Gwenyth Pearl's blessing day at church:

It was such a happy day.

This weekend we heard that a family friend died. He was a good friend of my youngest son's. All weekend long, we thought of him and his family. Shared memories. Wept. We won't ever forget him.

that was then. and, paradoxically, forever.

And today, we went to church and celebrated the life of a new little person.

It's too much to reconcile. We're mourning and celebrating all at once.

Happy blessing day to Gwen!

Pictures.

Today I heard about the death of a friend's son in a plane accident.  It's the devastating thing--this boy, full of life, just 25, gone just like that.  Even just hearing about it, it's the kind of thing that shakes you.  I sometimes have to talk myself down from the cliff of my fears for my kids, and now their kids--I think most parents do, at least sometimes.  It's a thought you barely allow to enter your mind, and then you have to glance off it.  It's unbearable.  I am thinking of his mother and that's another thought I have to glance off--it, too, is unbearable.

My folks asked me to send them some pictures of my kids for a project they're doing, so tonight I've been sifting through a million images of my beloveds (please, please be safe).

A death and an anniversary.

While driving around today, I heard a little segment of To the Best of Our Knowledge about the 20th anniversary of the recording of The Trinity Sessions, by the Cowboy Junkies. Margo and Michael Timmins talked about the recording, which was made in a church in Ontario with a single microphone, a fact I never knew during the period of time when I was listening to this recording all the time--I just knew it sounded eerie and spare, mournful, a little spooky, and mesmerizing. Listen to this for what I'm talking about, in case you never heard it:



Apparently, they're doing a revisiting of the session, which, hmm, strikes me as a little ill-advised, but who knows? They've got Natalie Marchant, Vic Chesnutt, and Ryan Adams helping with this new project. Maybe it will be amazing. In any case, it was sort of startling to hear this music again, which instantly made me remember a time in my life with utter clarity and vividness, the way music can.

And Bernie Mac, who is just my age, just died of pneumonia or complications thereof. This has made me feel unexpectedly sad. In what struck me as an original way, the man was truly funny.