Flying is more than itself. The act of flying centers on an airplane, a machine, departing gracefully from the ground and cruising through the air. The experience of flying centers on the act, but is drawn from the sky beyond the event, the rushing away of the earth, the clouds at eye level, the freezing of time and the wordless expression of music.

The first time I ever flew with a music player I discovered, quite by accident, an album that stood out of my collection as being particularly suited for the experience. Since that flight I’ve made a point of listening to that album every time I fly.

It begins the same way every time. First an ethereal voice, subdued and tentative, taxis me toward the runway. Then comes the pulse of the song – and tonight the music is timed just so – the assertion of the drums, the presentation of the living force of the piece, is immediately followed by the awesome roar of the aircraft’s engine. As the music builds, so does my speed.

With a few seconds’ warning, as the nose of my mighty machine leaves the runway all of the blood is forced from my head. So too is everything which clouds my mind and soul: all of my fears, my thoughts, my misambitions depart through the floor, haughtily deposited on the tarmac. Involuntarily I draw a deep breath. The greens and blues of the twilit airfield vanish in an instant, and the simmering lights of all that is humane quickly follow, rapidly becoming as distant in space and time as they feel when I’m on the ground.

As quickly as I leave the ground I enter the indistinguishable, opaque abyss of clouds. The world is gone, and I can see through my window only the massive engine, perfectly still from my perspective, totally dead except for the vibrations enfolding my body. Impossible force, contained in that stoic device, thrusting me relentlessly into the misty void. Somehow that mass of metal and fire, insentient as it is, seems to understand where it’s taking me. It seems almost aware, and to feel as I do, beneath its motionless silver surface.

Soon we emerge into a place truly between worlds: a vestibule of reality where time and imagination are suspended, overtaken, surrendered completely to the vision: I can see between two layers of clouds, an indistinguishable sea beneath me and an ornate ceiling above, inlaid with amorphous skylights and beset with dark, flowing chandeliers. The scape flows and changes indefinitely, each moment giving birth to a new world of amorphous geography. A flat, featureless sea gives way to immense mountains, which in turn fade seamlessly to a glossy Adirondack lake dotted with reeds and small, floating islands, wispy currents, willows on the shore. The soft blue light from above casts reasonlessly shifting shadows on this sea. There are no ships, no sails; no houses or cars; no lights aside from the hue of the water.

I am motionless – speechless – in my reverie, gazing helplessly, neither here nor elsewhere. I am not here, in this sea, for I am not a thing of it, nor of the same reality. This divine ocean of the sky exists in spite of me, without concern nor need for my permission. Without effect of my witness or notice of my awe, it fills me and captures me, outside my influence and inside my self.

Again I am lost in the clouds, in the great ceiling-wall between me and the void of the sky beyond. Again it is only me, the soothing roar of the engine still carrying me upward with only its tacit, shrouded regard for the majesty we now behold. The drums are ever pulsing, the saxophone and string lauding my captivation by the self-potent masterpiece beyond my window.

Again I emerge, this time into open space. A cotton plain extends forever beyond my machine, guarded only by the infinitely deep blue of the night sky. Looking over it I feel certain I could dismount my machine and walk forever, free of my life, free of my body, free of my own existence; permanently assimilated into the rolling plain beneath me. Here I am at a loss for my self; nothing occupies my mind but the familiar longing for this perfect, unblemished, unfettered world. Here, where the soul is free to fly through the endless twilight; stars above and deep indigo seas below; clouds gliding alongside and the cold night air rifting through flowing hair; lightless forests standing silhouetted against the green ribbon of sunset and the treetops sighing in my wake. Guided by the cold, welcoming light of a brightly full moon and its rings I soar through the night without aim or purpose. I fly among the grasses and seas and hills and plains because I am free and I am willfully a part of the night.

I can see this world through my window, but can only watch helplessly, hopelessly as now – as always – by only moments it eludes my yearning imagination. Eventually the music ends, and with it the magic fades into an elusive memory. Outside my window where my machine has outrun the cotton plain I can see the arteries of the earth laid out on the ground far below, a reminder that eventually I will land and leave the night far above.