I was on a plane once a long time ago, and the woman sitting next to me had never been on a plane before. 

She was young, perhaps nineteen or so, and she explained that she was going to visit her boyfriend at college in Atlanta where he would meet her at the gate.

This was at a time when you could still meet people at the gate and see all the sweet reunions, which are not as common to see now in the baggage claim area. A gate is so immediate and so much time has passed by the time you get to the baggage claim area that it is really just not the same at all as when gate meeting was permitted.

The young woman liked the plane ride a great deal and was so happy about seeing the clouds right next to her like floating travel companions, and she was so enchanted by the sliding window shade and the sturdy thick glass window the shade slid over and the view of big things made tiny from such an astonishing height.

And the inside of the plane thrilled her, too, the tray tables and the controls, all the buttons overhead. She especially enjoyed fiddling with the air control whoosh multiple times.

She appreciated everything about the ride including her complimentary beverage and her complimentary meal and the way it fit on the tray table so exactly, and the tiny salt packet it included. She really could hardly understand the people reading books or magazines on the plane when there was so much excitement to experience already without adding more.

She said, "I've been looking forward to this for such a long time. I just think this is amazing. We really are flying. We really are in this gigantic thing that is like a bird with wings only it is not a bird. Everything about this is an invention!”

I enjoyed her enthusiasm and it made me appreciate what had become a little familiar to me and put some magic and dimension back into it. 

Then we landed which was of course a wonder to her too, and we said goodbye and she gathered up her things, and I was right behind her as we made our way through the narrow aisle. She was eager to get out then and so adorably so.

I saw which waiting human was the one that she called boyfriend right away. He had blond hair and was rather plump in an unexpected sweetly, sensuous way, like a pie. He was pink in the face from the blood in him rushing up so suddenly at the sight of her. He took his hands out of his pockets and lifted them up in a spontaneous gesture that seemed to be welcoming and reaching out to her all at once. He seemed to vibrate a bit and had to steady himself as if from a jolt. He was bashful and his bangs obscured some of his expressions, but the feeling inside him was not bashful at all. It was a big feeling and it spread out from him and she walked directly into its beam. It was so glorious and brave how she did that even though she did it so naturally, as if she did not know a different way it could be, the way the whole thing could be, as I certainly did know, oh I did, and I was not much older than she was.

I wish I hadn't known the other ways it could be—ways of pretending, or sorrow or obligation or fighting, or crazily mismatched affections.

I gathered from that moment all I could and stored it somewhere for so many years and didn't take it out much to study at all. I want you to know that I am really not telling you this story for any specific reason having to do with us. It is just a memory I had, just something I was thinking about recently and wanted to finally write down the details and share with you and now—wow—now, it seems that I have.