travel notes

I wrote a lot in my journal today, mostly during my flight from Phoenix to Philadelphia. Now I am in my hotel room, and pretty tired after a brief workout and a shower.
Here are some of the things I wrote today on the way.

I am sitting on a B757 at Sky Harbor Airport, waiting to take off. Apparently there is a mechanical issue with the lavatory, so we're waiting on maintenance. I am sitting next to a quiet big guy whose foot keeps twitching.
In 4 or 5 hours, I'll be in Philadelphia. Peace Corps registration/orientation is tomorrow afternoon. We're leaving for Guinea the following morning, from New York.
I said my goodbyes at the airport a couple of hours ago. Samad, Diane, and my mom came to the airport to drop me off. I cried a little in the security line.
At Gate A-22, I met a tall thin bearded man with wild curly hair and a yellow yoga mat. I told him, "I wish I had my yoga mat, too." And we ended up talking for a while about yoga and Peace Corps, because it turns out that he served in Morocco in the early 90s. He now has a Bikram yoga studio in New York. He was pleasant to talk to, and he gave me some fresh blueberries.

"The light of consciousness is all that is necessary. You are that light."
-Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth (I was re-reading that on the plane)

also,

"You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the goodness that is already within you, and allowing that goodness to emerge."
-Eckhart

I am flying! Finally... the bathrooms are working but the cabin smells like pee. I am listening to John Legend on my iPod and looking out the window.
I see patches of shadows on the Earth, from the clouds. To the people down there, they must thing the whole world is gray. But they can't see that they're surrounded in light in all directions! They can't see the bigger picture. And who can blame them?
Light will come back when the clouds pass. It always does.

I have faith in people.
I know that inside of all of us, there is something divine. There is something good. and that thing is love.
I must remember to be patient with people, and with myself, because I too forget sometimes that I am love. And after all, life is about forgetting and remembering and forgetting and remembering again.

I'm still flying! I am flying over a part of the US that is green and fertile. There is frost outside of my window.

While it was hard to say goodbye to my loved ones, I am somehow glad to be free to re-create myself and re-invent myself. I am a river, always changing. In constant flux. When I return, I will be the same, but different.
My pen hits the paper and everything is different already--I wasn't writing much the last few months. Though I've been dry for years, the water is always in me, waiting to gush out. Even when I don't write, I'm still a writer!

Note to self:
Remember to breathe
Remember to meditate
Remember to be the space
Remember to be the light
Remember to love
Remember to laugh because nothing is that serious. Nothing!
Remember silence (in other words, don't talk all the time... listen!)

We will land in Philadelphia soon and I see green farmlands below. I almost remember seeing the same places on my way to France ten years ago (I stopped in Philly on the way there, too, when I was an exchange student.)
In a way, it's the same. My life will change in ways I won't know-- but it's completely different.
It's beautiful down there. The world is beautiful. And so small.