I was sitting in the airport a week and a half ago waiting to catch a plane to Kentucky for my brother's wedding when a storm hit. An airport employee came over the intercom to inform all of us that our flight would be delayed until the storm passed and we let out a collective sigh. I sat in a chair facing a television with the news coverage of the weather front moving through our area. It was then that I noticed something interesting. Everyone in the room older than a teenager was watching the television intently to try and determine how long it would be before the weather passed and our plane was in the air. All the children were looking out the windows at the rain as if they thought as soon as the rain stopped coming down, our plane could take off. I laughed to myself. We eventually boarded and I situated myself in a window seat on the left side of the plane. We lifted up above the weather, and just as we broke the clouds, our plane turned north, and I saw the sun setting and shining gloriously halfway above the storm and half below. It was one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen. I then looked around the plane and saw that all of those level-headed adults who had been prudent enough to watch the weather instead of the rain were now squinting to read some book or magazine. I wasn't sitting near any of the kids, but I'm sure they were reaching over their parents, wide-eyed and amazed at this miracle. Life is like that. We figure out how something works, and it stops being a miracle to us. We see it on a daily basis and are no longer astounded. We know that we are sitting on a giant ball rotating around a star at a perfect angle and a perfect orbit. It is simultaneously amazing and commonplace. Many people strive to recapture the nostalgia of childhood but fail to realize that the sense of wonder that made childhood so powerful never leaves us, we leave it.
