Flying home

I'm home!! I arrived in San Francisco at 4:45 pm and the plane touched down just as the sun was setting over the hills above San Francisco. The flight was just a beautiful flight.... the northern route over Greenland, Alaska, Canada and then down the west coast...

From the initial take off from Heathrow Airport, my flight home was just quite special. As the plane left the ground and headed up above the clouds, the lush green landscape surrounding the airport was touched with spectacular rays of sunlight poking through the sky of gray clouds. I've always loved seeing the light reach out in this way, and seeing it now made me feel like mommy was with me, finding a way to be visible to me as I was completing this journey.

The sun set just 45 min after take off, around 3:30pm in the afternoon...and then that reddish glow of sunset stayed glistening in the purple light of the evening sky for the next 5 hours. The ice flows below, in the light of the constant sunset, showed spectacularly beautiful patterns of frozen land and water, and they were nothing short of miraculous. As we chased the sunset home, the sun poked itself up over the horizon again briefly somewhere over Canada, and remained visible in that pre-sunset state until just as our plane was landing in San Francisco. I found it very relaxing to be over pure nature for such a long period of time.

Also during this time, I found myself missing mommy a lot. (She died on November 6th) Perhaps because I was finally getting closer to being home, I was feeling my mom's absence more tangibly. Maybe I was missing her because by being up above the earth, I felt closer to some ethereal spirit world where all souls touch and I felt a stronger connection to her. Maybe, it was that mommy would often play the game of looking at clouds, or trees, or other things in nature and tell us what images she could see, (do you see an elephant in that cloud?) and I wanted to play the game with her. I couldn't find any creature shapes in the ice but I could feel being with mommy and that was wonderful...and I miss her.

Gradually, areas with a few lights or other patterns of human existence, began appearing in the landscape. Slowly I came back into the human world of reality and enjoyed seeing familiar landscapes: flying over snow-capped mountains in Washington and Oregon, moving into the hills, lakes and valleys in Northern California, and then following the 101 freeway into San Francisco. Home was getting closer and closer.

The evening was a crisp, clear autumn evening in the bay area and our flight path took us west of the coastline, so from my window seat, I was looking down on the Golden Gate Bridge from the ocean side, with the East Bay panorama in the background. It was easy to pick out the Campanile on the Berkeley campus and the Claremont Hotel set back in against the hills – oh the joys of the familiar.

Just as the plane touched down, with a perfectly smooth, glass like landing, the sun, which had comforted me during this journey home, set again today, and this time over the familiar hills of San Francisco.

My journey had many bookends: having mommy in my daily life while planning for this trip for over a year and having no mom to hug and talk to upon my return, leaving on the full moon in November and returning on the full moon in December, starting today's journey with a sunset in one place and ending with a sunset in another.

Laura and Daddy were at the gate to meet me with open arms and big hugs. Cynthia was at my parents’ house making dinner and getting the candles lit. A wonderful welcome home! Now that I'm here, I will continue to reflect on this process of being alive in this world. That is an ongoing process for sure and I'm glad to be here to do it.

With much love, Sara