The allure of flying for me has not dimished since September 11th. The lines for security are longer, the overall tension in airports is more tangible, but still, after watching the planes fly into the World Trade Center, I still treasure my time at the airport, the sheer exhiliration of the takeoff, the realization that, once in the air, you are flying. Man's eternal dream and quest, to fly has only been realized for 100 years, and commercial travel has only been common for 40 years. We take it for granted, as we took for granted it was always safe.

Locked into your steel tube, a sardine can in the air, the flights ever smoother, the whole flying experience designed to ever-further insulate you from what you were truly doing, we all became innured to the inherent dangers of it all. Moving at 450 mph at 30000 feet above the ground, we all forget how close to the edge we really are. Planes are safe, smooth, quiet, and set up to relieve you of the fear that you naturally have of being above the ground, the laws of physics and the intelligence of man keeping you aloft.

I remember going to the airport as a kid, the magic of flying all brand new. Flying wasn't as common then, it hadn't reached the stage where people wore shorts and tshirts on flights. Then, flying was an event worth dressing up for, and thus just by virtue of that subtle deliniation between that and regular life, it became a whole other world, one special and worthy of savoring. Each trip was always something to look forward to. Even waiting for the the plane in the gate area was something neat. Watching the pilots and stewardesses walk by in their trim uniforms, purposeful and happy, was something to admire, something to maybe do when I grew up.

For many people, waiting for their plane is an exercise in boredom, in useless time wasting. The constant stimulation of regular life isn't always there. Granted, if you're late for a connecting flight, or snow in a remote city is delaying your flight, waiting isn't the most fun one can imagine. But the time in the airport is really a time to reflect, to dream, to look back at your past, and ahead to your future.

The symbolism of movement, the people themselves on the planes, each heading to some remote destination for business, for meetings, for vacations, to visit family, serves to ignite your imagination. At a large airport, one with international terminals, you can people watch at a gate where people are waiting to go to a foreign tropical paradise. Dressed in bright clothes, with straw bags, each one of them has that look of anticipation, the thoughts of sun-drenched beaches in their minds, the calmness showing on their faces with two weeks of vacation ahead of them. At gates for European cities, you can watch people laden down with 3 times the amount of luggage they could possibly need for a vacation.

Business travellers, typing on laptops, talking on cell phones, each impatiently looking at departure screens for the time to somehow advance ahead, rushing to a meeting.

You see it in the eyes of kids, the ones who haven't had their innocnece stripped from them by their parents, the magic of travel taken away, replaced by a forced indifference. That forced indifference that their parents have only masks their fear of flying, and their kids lose out, thinking that the aiport is just another MCDonalds, there only to play in, run around and make noise, rather than think about what they are doing.

I feel lucky, in some ways, that I still haven't lost that innocence of flying, that the allure of going to the airport with a remote destination in mind, has not been lost. Each time I come to the airport, it becomes a time for me to reflect, to dream about the places I have yet to go, to take advantage of the waiting time to relax and unwind. Not filling it up with harried phone calls, watching CNN on a monitor, or some other distraction to keep my mind over-stimulated. Each trip, even though I may work 18 hour days at the destination, is a mini-vacation in it's own right. Most of that vacation is simply the travel time, and the waiting at the airport. It allows you to be remote, like you're in the city, with all the people around you, rushing, walking, sleeping, and you are there too, one of the many, but anonymous in your own remote world.

It's no wonder I still love flying.