Flying Above the Fog

One Friday night, our plane took off from the San Francisco International Airport. Amongst other things, this particular flight was the start of a vacation from the doom and gloom of San Francisco summers. Fog is rarely my friend as I blame it for making things cold, dreary and chasing away Summer. As our plane lifted off over the San Francisco Bay, my window seat provided me views of the Bay Area that I rarely get to see. We ascended through the patchy fog over crowded hills sparkling with amber lights. On the horizon was the two day waning Full Moon, abnormally large and orange and spectacular. The large amount of moonlight washed the area in a dusk that seemed never ending, making the fog white and confusing the landscape with what looked like puffy white day clouds in a darkening night. The bright amber lights, in concentrated brightness over large parking lots and other unidentified clusters added an effect I had never seen before - fog glowing from beneath.
Normally, we are trapped in the wet, soupy mess on ground in and below the fog.  From above, the fog took shapes that looked more like real clouds and yet, they were dispersing a human-made light almost unnatural and fictional. We were still in the "Electronic Devices Must Be Turned Off" mode or I would have taken a picture. So I etched it in my mind to save only as a memory. It was a world I had not seen, foreign clouds, earth below, moon large and lovely. Above, it is beautiful and wondrous and new. I am glad for this new perspective.