A Sixth Sense

Have you ever looked out the window of an airplane a few minutes before landing? Just looked at the place you're flying into? I always do. And it's strange, I know, but usually I can tell exactly what kind of a generalized experience I'll have in that place from that glance, be it exciting, happy, mellow, sweet, horrific.

I'm not sure why.

Some kind of crazy cosmic connection I suppose.

I flew into Spokane one time, I was moving back to my parent's place after a failed attempt to go to school in Indiana (just wasn't the right timing) and as I looked out, I knew I was going to be miserable (mind you, I tried my best not to be miserable)... and I was.

I looked out once at San Francisco four years ago, as I was landing to go to a job interview and felt hopeful and tingly and somehow knew that I was where I needed to be.

The first time I flew into Rome I saw the beautiful, rolling Italian hills and farms below me and felt absolutely riveted, ecstatic, like I belonged to that land; and my time in Rome was exactly the same as that feeling.

Copenhagen, Salt Lake, London, Atlanta... It doesn't always happen, that feeling, that preview, if you will. But when it does, it's always interesting to see how things pan out.

Because if it does happen, things always pan out just like the fly-over-preview says they will. It's like a movie trailer for me. I don't know all the details for the impending movie, but I get the gist.

And I like it.

I left Cairo on unsettling terms. My flight was direct to the small island of Malta.

When I flew over Malta I felt safe. There wasn't the same exotic, lush, beachy buzz as Barbados. Nor the comforting familiarity of Oakland. But as we landed, things felt easy, do-able and fun. I felt I'd escaped the edginess of Cairo and was finally someplace I could relax my guard a little bit.

Photo from: http://www.maltavista.net/en/list/photo/1.html

Do you get sixth-sense like movie trailer previews for events in your life?