Revelations at 15,000 feet

Tag had a business trip this week (it is his busy season). However, time and location being in line with the stars, I was able to go along for a small vacation. Our jaunt took us up to Seattle, a city I had longed to visit. Raised in Florida, but living in a desert, I find myself chronically desiring a good rain. Seattle seems a likely candidate for providing such pleasures.

However, I find that the trip allotted me so much more than just precipitation. The flights themselves were fairly uneventful, often hovering over or barrelling through fluffy worlds of grey and white. Below me the land stretched out, a luscious green, rising and falling in large crinkly waves; emerald velvet discarded by some frivolous seamstress. Deep pools of black decorated the fabric of the landscape. Tract housing, with its circular patterns and identical roofs, reminded me of ringworm signs in flesh, and the irony of that was not lost on me. Urban sprawl is a parasite, leaching its way through virgin wildlife. Forehead pressed to the tiny window, I was simultaneously awed, inspired, saddened and disgusted. The more I study and work with conservation and rescue, the more I rage at the majority of American culture, with its need for instant gratification and its "Me First" attitude. And yet there I was, riding on a plane, for a recreational trip to another city, for no other reason than "Oooh, that would be cool."

Tag says that I worry too much. He's not the first to say something along those lines to me. But I can't stop my mind from spinning into a frenzy. I can't stop it long enough to sit still these days. My actual mental health scares me sometimes, as I feel that my long time depression is slowly transforming into something more bi-polar. I don't want to be sick, but the signs seem so inevitably obvious. Yet I don't want it to be true. I don't want to be on medication, not now... and certainly not forever.

I've read on various blogs the argument that if I had diabetes, I wouldn't hesitate to take insulin. Or if I had cancer, I wouldn't hesitate to treat it with radiation or chemo. But the simple fact is that I wouldn't want to. I would resist traditional therapies and would like to pursue other methods of healing. I don't care what the disease, I don't want to be on medication for the rest of my life. However, I fear that I am inherently lazy, and would not do all that needs to be done to treat the illness holistically. It is overwhelming to look down the barrel of that gun and feel so disempowered.

So runs the gamut of emotions that I experienced over the last three days. Awe at beauty, but fury at its demise. Impassioned about living, but despondent over where life is headed. Lucky, but unlucky. I am urged to take life by its proverbial horns and change the world, but discouraged by the feeling of being perpetually behind the 8-ball. Like the tiny ice crystals that form on plane windows, there are moments of small, unparalleled beauty, but they melt before your feet touch down.

Thinking never stops in my brain. I wake from dreams still pondering the questions that were asked of me during their neuron-dancing frenzy. And yet still, I wake without answers. Hanging in mid-air, the ground below is magical and enticing to the touch. I just need to find a way to bring that essence down, pluck it out of the wind like a butterfly or stray balloon, and let the floating freedom transform me. Because if I don't figure out how to manifest that transformation soon, I fear that I will remain this neurotic pill-popping people hater. And that is just one step closer to becoming part of the problem.

There is so much that needs transformation and healing. But tonight, I am overwhelmed and jet lagged, lost in thought that handicaps my desire for action. It is not the most comfortable seat on the plane.