This morning I got on a plane from Seattle to LA. With the plane lifting off shortly after 6:00, I spent most of the flight drifting in and out of sleep and enjoying the Starbucks coffee and croissant that I’d picked up in the airport. Two rows behind me were a pair of boys, maybe six and seven, with their dad.
“When are we going to take off? How fast are we going to go?” They asked in excitement. More cries of excitement as the plane started to move, gasps of wonder as we lifted off of the ground, and awe as we rose above the clouds. “Can we go all the way into space?” One of them asked.
With the help of the uncontainable excitement of two boys experiencing flight for the first time, I regained some of my own wonder. I watched out the window at the mountains peaking over the clouds as we left Seattle and the first view of the coastline as we neared LA. I listened to them pointing out the houses far bellow and remarking on the swimming pools, and to their dad telling them to pay attention as we came to the ground so that they would feel when we landed and the airplane started to hit its breaks and slow down.
As long as there are children, wonder will not go out of the world.