There is the feeling of climbing over the continents, climbing up and over the crest of the earth. Up and over the north Pacific in a wide clean arc. Though their orbit proceeds in a straight line around the planet, the planet’s turn makes the orbital path appear to loop up and down, north and south in deep undulations, from the rim of the Arctic Circle to the southern seas. And now, at its northernmost point, it dips again. Far off to the left is the smooth, crisp bonbon of ice that marks Alaska. A cloud-free confection of crackable white. When the cloud accrues further south, the whole of
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