I find it strangely comforting to blog while in transit. Right now, I'm making my way from Toronto to San Francisco -- via the Newark airport. I'm logistically closer to home, with only one more flight separating me from my own bed, but geographically I'm hundreds of miles farther away from my goal than I was this morning. Though it is unlikely that there is anyone at this airport who knows me, I'm not alone. I rest secure in the knowledge that I can reach out to my loyal readers on the blogosphere, make my presence known, if only virtually, while I'm in neither of my homes.

Although air travel can be incredibly aggravating, I also treasure the time it gives me to reflect. Some of my most fruitful reflective moments over the last year have been granted to me while sitting at airports such as the one I'm at right now. I'm usually full of excitement, new resolve to do good and truer things when I get home. Such is how I feel right at this moment.

A couple of weeks ago, humanity commemorated the centenary of powered flight. Though air travel was well-established long before I was born, I still find flying amazing, almost miraculous. There are a lot of astounding things in this world, many technologies that are arguably more advanced than human flight. I suppose my amazement has a lot to do with being physically transported among the different worlds I inhabit. Virtual reality does not come close to physical reality at this point. When I am physically in Toronto, my entire life in Berkeley more or less vanishes -- sure, it still continues, but it more surely enters the realm of suspended animation. So must it be with my family's life in Toronto. They are as real as I am -- but when we are thousands of miles apart, it must appear to my dear family that I'm gone into some twilight zone while they go about the daily business of living.

Can't I live in both worlds simultaneously? As miraculous as air travel is, it has yet to allow me to pull off that trick.