Hi, Clouds

I took my seat on my flight from Raleigh to Tampa via Atlanta and watched as the other passengers filed in and took their seats all around me. I didn't really notice as the young mom with an infant in her arms and a three year old settled in just behind me. But when I heard the little girls voice I thought to myself, "Better me than most anyone else to have the three year old in the seat directly behind me." I seem to have a higher tolerance for children and their antics, especially when I am in a good mood. And today, I was in a good mood. It was a happy day. I was happily off eight hours of sleep, was taking a happy flight to Tampa for my god son's first birthday party and baptism and was happy to spend the next four days with my very best friend and her family. This story is not about happy turning to crappy by some rowdy youngins. They were actually extremely well tempered (to be honest, I didn't even know that there was a newborn behind me until after we landed in ATL.) But it was the little girl in 16A, with the cartoon character voice, only audible by the curious passenger directly in front of her, that captured my attention.

What a delightful little thing. She quietly talked about her missing goldfish snacks, pondered whether or not to try her mom's strawberries and yogurt granola bar and reminisced with her mother about the last flight she took when the nice lady treated her to pretzels. (I only remember the food related conversation, surprise, surprise.) As the plane began its descent into Atlanta I guess she caught her first glimpse of the clouds from her low position in the seat. "I see clouds!" she exclaimed. "Hi, clouds."

Well, I saw clouds too. I had been seeing them and photographing them since we left Raleigh. I happened to be a particularly big fan clouds. But never did I think to say hello. How rude of me. And it got me thinking. When did I stop seeing, with a childlike wonder, the personality of things? I mean, when was the last time I looked beyond the aesthetic and pondered the world as if everything had a soul? As a child, everything had life to me. I assigned human like qualities to everything from dolls and cars to trees and buildings, and especially, especially clouds. The clouds of north east Atlanta were in a pleasant mood today. Full of light, they were puffy and pure white. I imagined then, as I am sure 16A was doing, what the cloud might say back to me, had I taken the time to say hello, the tone, the inflection, the drawn out "well, heeeellllooooo, there," in a voice much like Falkor from The Never Ending Story. It would have been a delightful encounter indeed.

She continued to greet the clouds as we descended below them and then moved on to talking about taking the car ride home from the airport, hoping daddy would be the one driving them. And as we bounced along the runway after landing and taxied our way to our gate, a salutation from behind me reminded me that, just moments off of my rekindled appreciation for the soul of things, I had absentmindedly forgotten to greet the planes.

"Hi, plane!"