The final days of 2024 were a blur of miles, moments, memories, and motion. On Christmas Day, I pointed my car south and drove 1,212 miles from my Long Island home to Apollo Beach, with K2 — my loyal German Shepherd co‑pilot — stretched out in the back, watching the world roll by.
Barely a week later, before dawn on December 31, I was back in the air. Delta carried me from Tampa International Airport toward New York's JFK, lifting off just as the last sunrise of the year began to paint the sky.
Somewhere north of Tampa, the last morning's first sunlight broke through the clouds over a region I'd never even heard of: the Jay B. Starkey Wilderness Park. From above, hidden by an unbroken aerial carpet of cloud cover, it lay tucked between places with names that sound like they were chosen by poets — Odessa, Trinity, River Ridge, Moon Lake.
The under‑appreciated gifts of ubiquitous GPS and internet access, even high in the sky, I thought to myself. A quiet wilderness greeting the final sunrise of a loud, relentless year.
A fleeting moment, a new discovery, and the sky reminding me — again — why I have flown in a window seat all my life since my first flight as a 7‑year‑old in Pakistan. And why I never stop looking out the window at what each new morning, mile, month, and year unfolds in my journey on Earth and through the universe's space and time.
Thank you — again — God Almighty.
© 2024–2026 IMRAN®
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