plainly

Aside from being frisked on the way back, I really like airports. There is no better place for people-watching. One sees so much outlandish clothing in airports. All these individuals with their own history and future sharing the present --people of all sorts randomly crammed into a little silver machine and sent shooting through the sky together.

We flew home from turquoise ocean and cotton candy clouds to pea soup and mountains in the dark. I always like looking at cities from the sky at night, all gold and glittering in the darkness. As you descend, however, you realize it's all just streetlamps and mediocrity and suburban light pollution.

And then we were back in the snowy cold, loading our luggage into the iced-over van, trying not to step in the pile of frozen sick. But somehow, a week's escape and the reassurance that it is warm somewhere in the world makes the chilly dark a little easier to bear.