The end of one thing is almost invariably the beginning of another. Nothing reminds me of this more pointedly than time spent at the airport. People are jammed into this microcosm of hurry-up-and-wait, playing out every aspect of plodding patience and spiky urgency, of rabid determination and aimless uncertainty, on the spectrum ranging from action to stasis.It’s easy to forget, when one is in the Infinite Queue that always precedes ticket purchase, baggage checking or security examinations, never mind plane boarding, that even the most extreme globe-spanning flights comprise in reality a very small portion of one’s entire life span (one hopes). Even easier to become so focused on the specific trip being taken at the moment that one will be leaving many places yet to journey to others, long after the current sojourn is a distant memory. Every one of the departures and arrivals may have its own significance, indeed, but each is only a passing event in a longer timeline.Perspective is difficult to achieve and even harder to maintain. To go toward one loved person or place demands that we leave another behind. This is how we will always be, one foot planted and reluctant to move from where we have been and the other striving to move us toward the new, our hearts and minds leaning forward or back but seldom willing to hold still right where we are. And it isn’t such a bad thing, at that. It’s how we grow and change and find new loves, none of which can happen without taking the occasional flying leap, whether it’s on an aircraft or strictly metaphorical. Time flies, but so can we.