Watching Airplanes

Just like 

the song says...I’m just sittin down here watching airplanes...take off and fly. Tryin to figure out which one you might be on....and why you don’t love me anymore. 

A friend of mine showed me this place. I like to call it “our place” because we have been out here a few times together just to think, vent, and watch the planes. I know we both come out here sometimes alone to think and to just be. He doesn’t know it, but I have come out here more than once, lately to pray. But, I don’t really have the right to call it “ours.” It’s really just his. He showed it to me and told me about it. I feel guilty as if I am stealing his special place from him. Yet, I know he is at work tonight, [ha], so for tonight, I will call it all mine. Tonight, it’s mine. All mine.

It’s this place right outside of the GR Airport, called “The Viewing Area.” It is amazing. You just sit down on the hill or on a picnic table and literally watch the airplanes take off, fly, and land. What’s even better about it is that the sun sets right in the west, above the runway. It is simply gorgeous. I came out here tonight because I felt guilty sitting at home in front of the tv when it is the most perfect night. Ironically, I have had about four people call me and I just decided to put my phone on silent. I don’t want to share tonight with anyone but Phoenix. (Who is laying on the table right next to me, her back completely turned from the runway, more excited to watch the cars and people pulling in and out of the “Area.” ) She was inside all day and so when I came home we went for a 2 mile walk/run around the track, and then I took her out here. I like to think of it as a “doggy date” with my pup. Usually I would be sad and mourning in my sorrow for being alone and not having anyone here with me to share this with. But not tonight. 

People always write about the sun and sun sets, that I feel like whatever I write will not even begin to give others justice. But what I see tonight cannot go without words. The sun is a huge orange glowing hanging ball. Clouds around it  so that you can just see the top of it with specks in between the clouds. As I write, it’s setting faster and faster as if it knows I wanted to leave at nine o’clock--it’s drifting quicker so that when I leave, I won’t feel as much guilt for deserting it on this night. It is now a shade of pink and it’s resting on top of whatever building is in the distance. My dog blocks my view and she anxiously awaits for this worthless piece of writing to end. The air is filled with the chain rattling around her neck, birds - one of which is a yellow gold-finch resting on top of the 20ft fence around the runway. No crickets or frogs just yet. Only the sound of the humming tower behind me. I think it is used for the local weather station. 

The sun is 1/2 behind the building, and its color has changed to a deep hot magenta, neon pink. The more I look that way, into the west, the more bright spots I see in my eyes.  The clouds’ tips are highlighted by a silver sun glow from the setting sun. It makes the rest of the sky in the west a pallet of pastels. It almost looks like a rainbow within the clouds. 

The sun is gone. All that is left is a building in the distance with broken clouds around it. Specks of sunshine, glowing neon orange between the purple-blue sky. 

Magnificent.