Summary

The author expresses a profound fascination with the concept of flight, drawing parallels between their own yearning for freedom, perspective, and exploration, and the migratory patterns of birds.

Abstract

The article delves into the author's deep-seated envy of birds and their ability to fly, which is symbolic of freedom from the constraints of the physical world. The author draws inspiration from a scene in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," where Harry Potter rides on the back of a hippogriff named Buckbeak, to illustrate their desire for liberation and the sense of wonder associated with flight. They equate the feeling of flying with the freedom to leave behind the burdens of material possessions and the monotony of daily life. The author also reflects on the shared experience of air travel, where strangers collectively engage in a temporary suspension of time and personal narratives intertwine, as a form of introspection and connection with humanity. Furthermore, the author views the act of traveling as a means of gaining new perspectives, self-discovery, and healing, akin to the migratory instincts of birds. The essay concludes with the author's commitment to a life of continuous travel and wonder, acknowledging that the vastness of the world fuels their desire to explore and experience life to its fullest.

Opinions

Flight represents an ideal of freedom, allowing one to metaphorically escape the weight of physical possessions and daily life.
The experience of flying, whether through the imagination or in an airplane, provides a bird's-eye view that encourages introspection and a reevaluation of one's place in the world.
The author believes that travel, like the flight of birds, is more than just a leisure activity; it is a therapeutic and transformative experience that leads to a deeper, braver, and more colorful life.
The shared experience of air travel, with its temporary suspension of time and communal

I Envy the Birds

Why I’m fascinated with flight and what it’s taught me about travel

I’ve always been captivated by flight.

When I’m asked, “What would your superpower be?”

Undoubtedly, flying.

“What animal would you want to be reincarnated as?”

Without question, a bird.

I frequently play a scene from the movie Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban in my head, when Harry first meets Buckbeak. Once he befriends the creature and is thrown onto him, Harry nervously grabs his scruff and they take off. We watch as Harry is taken by the sensation and Buckbeak’s talons skim the body of water below them, the ripples disappearing rapidly behind. Only a vast expanse of mountains ahead.

It’s a scene that calms me and fills me with wonder.

As it popped into my mind again and again over the years, I began to ask, aside from the fact I’m an air sign (Gemini, here), what is it about flight that enthralls me so completely?

I think it is freedom.

There is a reason we have the saying, “Free as a bird.”

Have you ever felt so weighed down by physical things that you wanted to whisk off and leave them all behind? I go through regular phases where the accumulating mass scrunched and draping from my closet hangers frustrates me. The plastic storage bins held together with worn duct tape that seem to multiply every time I move exhaust me.

And though the “whisking” sensation is not the same as a bird’s flight, it is also what intrigues me so much about airplanes.

Where hundreds of strangers and I share a vessel and look at the same clouds. We feel the same turbulence, we drink the same tiny plastic cups of orange juice. We snack and sleep and stretch and sway to the music in our Airpods. The hum of the engine is interrupted only by a mother two rows ahead firmly warning her child, “You better stop smackin’ that gum or I’m gonna come over there and rip it outta your head!”

As I sit there silently with myself, it ironically makes me want to engage with people with such a renewed fervor. To return to the ground from my instant offline and fiercely reclaim my existence to others, “Hey, don’t worry, I’m here! I’m ready to really start living!”

I imagine it’s a similar feeling to that of the birds. They swirl in the sky above us naturally grounded beings, gliding where it is they are trying to go, experiencing a familiar but renewed rush of unbridled agency.

Do birds feel things in this way? When I am up in the air, removed from it all, I certainly do.

Our consciousness is weightless and speeds through a sky we alone share with water vapor and the common crane. Neither here nor there. Neither now nor later. It is on airplanes that I am acutely reminded of how burdensome the concept of time is.

But our state of suspension grants relief from that burden. And the anonymity of that halted moment in time, however brief, is uniquely liberating.

I think it is perspective.

Flying in an airplane, in this forced pause, we are able to physically experience the bird’s-eye view. It encourages me, in this bodily shift, to reflect on my space—that I take up, hold and share—in the world. I contemplate the kind of energy that is present in those interactions.

There’s something distinct about airplane travel that makes me introspective (though if I’m being honest, not much more than I already typically am).

For a time you are removed from your usual place. The place you are so accustomed to occupying. To experience a new perspective requires curiosity, and there is nothing that can teach you more about the way you are as a human than to learn about the way of other humans. I can argue we humans become too accustomed to places, and that is also what we can learn from the birds. Movement heals.

I then consider the things I would really want to make time for because among my quotidian realities, they often only go as far as a passing thought. I allow my mind to wander and imagine all that’s possible. My interests and fixations tend to shift frequently, so I don’t know what my life is going to look like in the future. But I have fun imagining all the things it could be. All the things I could be.

And it only helps when I look around and realize for every passenger on the airplane, including myself, the world has stopped. Our lives have ceased to buzz and ping. My story is now irreversibly woven into that of the stranger next to me; for a short while, the movement of our respective worlds is synched.

Imagine that.

I think it is exploration.

Can you imagine if humans migrated as regularly as birds? (You could argue some do, in a way.)

In their lifetime of 30 years, Arctic terns travel the distance it takes to get to the moon and back — not once, not twice, but up to three times. That’s 1.5 million miles.

Every day, these buoyant beings scoop their wings off their sides to feel the wind and nothing else at all. As them, I’d imagine watching life happening below me, endlessly stretching on and on and on. Like a supper table, waiting for me to devour it.

I want to devour the world.

Perhaps I’m overly sentimental, but it’s why my airline credit card is savagely swiped. It’s why I get itchy feet after being in one place for too long.

My reverent observations of the birds suggest that travel represents more to me than a simple yearly beach vacation to use up the PTO my boss insists I take. It represents to me a gateway to living a deeper, braver, and more colorful life.

Travel is about fun experiences and new places, yes. But it’s also a deep breath. A therapy session. A regular reminder that the world is so much bigger than my little apartment in my little city in the expanse of miles and miles and miles and miles of land and life that I’ve yet to see.

And with that, I realize that I don’t think I’ll ever stop traveling, I don’t think I’ll ever stop fueling my wonder.

And I’ll certainly never stop looking up.

My unfettered glee for flight, captured in real-time. Photo by author.

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