i'm staring down at the world from 30,000 feet, and I am jealous of the order life seems to have from these heights. It's geometric from this viewpoint. People fit into tidy little boxes, and move in methodical logical patterns. Everything seems to make sense from such a distance, somehow the chaos is masked by the illusion of order. I am jealous of this because from this vantage point I am not part of it. I, along with my fellow passengers, am exempt from this illusion of safety and order for the next 2 hours and 58 minutes, approximately, as my captain would emphasize. I am jealous of all of their illusions. From here there are no labels, or assumptions. Each person is but a microscopic dot on a surprisingly orderly map. They do not have problems, or pain, or anguish. They do not have to think, because they are dots, on a map that is far larger than they could ever imagine being. They move in tune with one another without question or pause. Here, in this pressurized cabin, we exist apart from them. We move in chaotic polite fashions that, for most of us, are insincere and annoying. We do not know each other, nor do we care to. And yet we are bonded in the fact that we alone are exempt from that land-locked order. Our problems are somehow larger here since they are confined in such a small space. Life is in the balance here, and we risk everything we are simply by being here.

But in 2 hours and 5...3 minutes, approximately, I will return to ground level and realize that this illusion is just that, an illusion. The chaos of the streets will return, and I will have no need to be jealous of those people thousands of feet below because I will be one of them again. I will return to the world that is far more chaotic than ever seemed possible from 30,000 feet.

Is it wrong that I am in love with an illusion that, in all reality, I cannot ever be part of myself? I am in love with the efficiency of the world that I see out of this airplane window. My mind is, and has always been, largely mathematical. Angles make sense to me. Lines, and perfect shapes amaze my mind. I love the fact that there is always an answer in the mathematical world. And so, from above, that is what these people seem to have. They seem to have clean cut lives with absolute answers. People are but ants in a colony venturing through their daily routines with ease and reason.

Those of us above are in purgatory. Condemned to battle our demons in a cabin stuffed with others doing just the same. Maybe I'm the only one that feels this way, but this 2 hours and 58 minutes make life much more real. It's do or die up here. It really puts the important things in perspective. Looking at all the order of the world below makes you contemplate how much chaos you are creating.

Which brings us to the real problem...the only question that in this moment matters...does the world only seem so orderly because I am not in it?

Forever the creator of my own chaos,
Jenny Leigh