Amelia Earhart and a life worth living

I have been spending so much time wondering what Amelia would miss most. I have been focusing on the details. First meal? That was a good one. First view of a world so changed it's almost unrecognizable. Lots of inventions that would fascinate someone whose life revolved around a faith in physics, and in human ingenuity. In real life, Amelia pressed forward. But what would you do, given a second chance. It's the doing that got me stuck. Yesterday I thought about what you wouldn't do. What you'd marvel at, if you could take a breath and stand back. If you weren't always pressing forward. If you could observe, and enjoy and just live.

That's what I think she gets a chance to do. She gets a chance to be happy. Now I'm not saying she wasn't, or that any of us aren't. But given an opportunity perhaps we would be able to be the ultimate tourist. I'm never happier than when I'm in a country where I am completely free of the needs, wants and endless frustrations of my own daily life.

I think she is that tourist today. Here, but not here. She gets to see my city when it wasn't sanitized, when it wasn't as rich or as safe as it is today. There was a great ticking heart at the center of that city, one that made me fall in love with it on a daily, even hourly basis. This is the gift she gets, to be anonymous for a moment, to take a breath and not be Amelia.