If you were to fly the length of the Andes at night, or over some of the more sparsely populated areas of Europe such as parts of Turkey or Russia, looking out of the window you would occasionally see what seem to be tiny flickering fires on the earth below. Although they look just like the campfires we used to build on a Girl Guide hike, in fact they are the lights of small settlements or villages –larger than they look from 30,000 feet up.
In February 1970 we had to fly from Toronto to Trinidad, changing planes in New York. Sudden snow storms made it seem that we might be stranded for a time, but in the event both flights took off punctually.
I was still in my fear of flying stage & was rigid with anxiety during the obviously hazardous take offs & landings, although I was able to relax a bit once we were safely up at cruising height – planes very rarely just drop out of the sky, you know.
As we climbed out of New York, safely off the ground but not completely secure until the seat belt light goes off, & the plane began its long slow turn towards the south, my worries melted away as I became beguiled by what I could see below.
The entire city was enclosed by an enormous inverted bowl, transparent, perfectly hemispherical, & orange, reaching goodness knows how many feet at its highest point.
Not flickering like camp fires, not strung out in ribbbons as in slightly larger towns or cities, the lights of New York impose themselves much more dramatically.
It was my first real lesson in how much of all the electricity that we use just goes straight away to waste.
