On the return flight to Paris from Italy’s Mediterranean coast, I sat in a window seat for the

first time.

Everything began to grow smaller.

The airport, the roads, the cars, the fields. Everything receded until the houses, the cities,

became just clusters of dots, and the roads fine lines crackling through the earth.

Then there was the sea.

The dividing line between water and shore.

I wondered how a city can exist by the sea, and for the sea to be so near and yet so far.

I was looking down and thinking about the vastness of the earth.

All these distances that human beings can traverse.

All these cities that they can reach in just a few hours.

All these roads that you don’t need permission to take.

I realized that I’m trying something that I’ve never known before:

To not be under siege.

To fly.

To swim.

To walk.