In Defense of Awe

Over the past couple of months, not unlike many others, I get somewhat depressed. I think it might be SAD and I don’t have any issues if it is put in those terms.  I get tired of the cold weather. I get tired of everything being wet. I am cursed with dry skin so I live in discomfort from that during the winter months. I would say a good deal of cabin fever is also setting in. The fact that I’ve had two weeks of the flu, where moving makes me wheeze and cough hasn’t helped the situation.

I’ve a trip to Oregon coming up and I’ve tried to calm my soul in that I will soon be back in the mountains and volcanoes that I adore. No, I have never been there before, but I have many thousands of pictures  from photographers in the NorthWest so I feel like I’ve been there. I miss the West a great deal.

As I was coming back from dropping Hayden off at school, I was contemplating my poor situation. I’m not trying to overthink my situation. I was severely depressed on my mission for the church and I spent a significant amount of time and energy clawing my way out of it. Since then, I’ve been very aware of triggers and my state of mind in relation to depression so I don’t ever suffer like that again. I was mulling over what might pull me out of this. Perhaps it is warm enough for me to go to the river and just watch the water go by. That usually does wonders for me. Getting back in the gym would also help, but I find it hard to be in the gym once it gets warm.

Then it happened. I looked up and I saw a large airplane turning into its landing path to O’Hare. We are blessed to be on one of the glide paths of O’Hare Airport and the planes sometimes make their lazy turns somewhere close to our home. As I watched the plane turn, I went into several trains of thought. It wasn’t a 737 so perhaps it was an Airbus. Do those have four engines like this one? How fast is it going? What kind of lift is it experiencing? Which of the surfaces are getting the most lift. What ratio of lift vs. directed air are making it turn? My God, how do we get so many tons of aluminum and steel and people in the air like that?

I realized that I was in “awe”. It is something that happens quite often and I know how much I enjoy it. That is why I stare at mountains. That is why I long for life. Indeed, it might be why I even love, the awe of another person and all that they are. So while I was contemplating why I was depressed and what I need to do to get out of it, there it was, literally in the air in front of me.

The world is an amazing place. The people in the world can be amazing too. I don’t know how I can be depressed with such wonderful things around me. Unless, unless you keep me in a box because it is so uncomfortable out of the box at the time otherwise known as winter. I may have found something very fundamental to my thinking and emotional well-being. Gliding in the air. Right in front of me.