Most of us have had those moments when we aren’t quite sure where we fit in the world – those times when we’ve momentarily lost our bearings. Writer Tamar Charney was thinking about wayfinding on a recent trip up north.
People along the shore are watching the sun sink below the horizon where the white pines meet the bay. But my eyes are watching a glowing pink contrail high in the sky. I wonder, where is that plane coming from? And where is it going?
This has become the evening game. My husband and I try to guess where the late evening planes in the sky are headed. Are they coming from Chicago, Vancouver or Dallas. Are they headed to Munich, Amsterdam, or Tokyo?
In Northern Michigan, there aren’t planes constantly coming and going - here, there, and everywhere - as near Detroit Metro airport, where I live.
Most of the time, it’s either a Canadian flight or one headed across oceans and across continents.
Paying attention to the flights above has changed my understanding of where I am when I escape Up North.
I’m not just in a remote corner of Michigan where the land runs into a huge expanse of water. I’m situated in the context of the rest of the world – A place where people a mile overhead traverse on their way elsewhere.
Each jet flying overhead helps map the place where I sit on a beach as a point on the globe in relationship to other places.
The flight paths extend beyond our state, beyond our borders, and beyond our first-hand cultural knowledge. It reminds me that we are all part of a bigger world.
No matter where we are - even when we’ve lost our bearings or are at the end of the road or in the middle of nowhere, we’re still on the way to somewhere.
