What began as a mild curiosity in childhood evolved into a warm literary fascination through grade school, which in turn blossomed into a full-blown creative passion post grad school. The sound and shape, texture and nuance of words and phrases with their multitudinous meanings now provide hours of catharsis. Airplanes are a great place to explore this need for alphabetic euphoria.

Although the literary pursuit does not produce an euphoria akin to a good Scotch, the smokey taste in a dry mouth comes pretty close to the exhale of a sexy sentence. There’s a refreshing frothiness to a passable poem or satisfying turn of phrase that delights as does a good cigar. Words writ well (or that feel good at least) burn slow and warm in the mouth and fill the senses in similar fashion. I suppose it’s rather counter intuitive then, given the time required to relish a good cigar with friends, to spew out a few words crammed between two, probably delightful, people on a long flight.

Hypocrite? Maybe.

Wordy wannabe? Sure.

The wait needed to brew the perfect pot of tea, make an omelette and even set the table for one is the same tender, doting patience asked to erect the perfect poem, or at least forage for the perfect word in an imperfect poem.

So then, one airplane seat, made slightly less uncomfortable by pen and journal, a barely passable cup of coffee and time on my hands and vive la libre et bien écrire!