21st Century Trust

Today was an exciting day! Ever since I saw my aunt off at London's Heathrow airport - bound for Africa - in the 1960's, I have been seduced by the romance of travel! I took my first flight in 1972 when I was 18 years old. It was a big deal! I was the first one in my immediate family to fly. People took a boat, train or bus - but they didn't just hop on plane!

I think that is why I can identify with the philosophy that life is a journey, and that it is as important as the destination itself! My former partner used to complain that the travelling days were lost days on a vacation. I felt the opposite; consequently, although we left the house together and came back together, my vacations were always longer by a few days! The last minute packing and the hurried nights sleep before. The mad rush to the airport and the interminable queues. Security and baggage, waiting, watching people scurrying here and there. Timetables and scrolling destination boards. And then the meals! Ahh . . . . !! Of course I am usually a little hyper and often need to remind myself to pay attention to the moment, before it passes, but travel days are exciting - especially flying ones!

Today's excitment was in meeting my folks at the Tampa airport. British Airways was the carrier and as I watched the huge Airbus literally float out of the sky and skim onto the runway I was in awe. That an aluminium tube could transport my mum and dad over 3500 miles across the foreboding Atlantic Ocean is something that we just seem to take for granted these days! I watched planes dip out of the sky and line up like surfers waiting for a wave before gracefully gliding down to earth, one after the other. Then I thought of how many airplanes were doing just that, effortlessly, around the globe, that minute, that hour, that day. And I said thank you! Thank you to the laws of nature, the determination of generations of scientists and engineers and the tenacity of human beings who have created the opportunity for anyone who can raise a couple of hundred dollars to share in this modern day adventure!

It is humbling too, for we take so much for granted. Air travel, as with any mass transit system, is an impossibility of we do not work together as a society. It is a privilege, not a right. An individual might by himself be able to build a cart for a horse to pull, but it would be impossible to construst, for ones own use, a conveyance that can take you from your home in Florida and drop you in London within a half a day! For sure, there are issues with customer service in the airline industry these days but hold on before you start a boycott! How else can you get to Europe and back for less than 12 tanks of gas? At the current average MPG you couldn't even make it one way to England - and it would take you more than a week! Affordable international air travel has made the world accessible to anyone who chooses to take the journey and will continue to unite our global family in the decades ahead. The awareness that travel is a privilege is not lost on me. I have been fortunate enough to visit 44 of the 200+ countries on our globe. many of them by air. This has provided me an opportunity to experience how small the world really is and how interconnected we all are. For this awareness I am grateful. It helps me to think globally while I am acting locally!

I am looking forward to my travel day on October 11th when my cousin Marion will fly me to London for her wedding. I said it would take a miracle for me to be able to go this year! The miracle is two-fold! Not only am I being gifted a ticket, but I will put my trust in some big shiny hollow metallic bullet that has been scheduled to pick me up and deposit me five time zones away before dinner! Wow! I relish that moment and am giddy with anticipation! My vacation will begin as I get up that morning and will not end until I flop into my own bed 12 days later. It's all about the journey and I can't wait to see what I shall see!!

Love and Peace - Geoff