I wrote this on an airplane napkin, as my handwriting – jerked and jolted by turbulence – meandered and bounced like an ECG graph or a lie detector. I was trying to keep still, but simply couldn’t stop moving.

I stuffed the napkin in my pocket, and all I could salvage when the plane touched down was a torn and smudged outline for a column. Actually, not an outline, but a collection of vaguely connected thoughts which seemed like they had something to say.

I was thinking about movement. Do you ever wonder how many people are literally in the air at any given moment, going somewhere? It’s as if there is an entire population of humans suspended thousands of feet in the air, living lives of pure transit.

I was moving, too – well, not literally, but I was on a plane that was moving. Then again, the plane was travelling through air that was moving, which was itself part of the Earth’s axial rotation and orbit, so I guess it’s all relative and nothing was moving. Or everything was.

Anyway, it occurred to me that people really are always moving, even when they’re trying to stand still. And as we float by, everything is relentlessly changing, which can be scary. Whether it is seniors scheduling their final semesters of courses or the rest of us staring obsessively at our Degreeworks “progress” meters, it seems like change is hopelessly imminent – which is even scarier.

Sometimes change can be abrupt and jarring, while other times it is barely audible – just background noise. Occasionally we directly seek it out, but other times it marches on without our consent.

As for me, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about the changes I’ll face next semester when I’ll be traveling and studying in Europe until June. I’ve been particularly struck by the bittersweet realization that I won’t be back in Tuscaloosa for about eight months after final exams this December – it will be a definite break from my normal rhythms of life, promising both welcome and unwelcome changes.

Maybe we can’t stop change – we are simply resigned to live in a state of perpetual motion. But maybe sometimes, if we embrace the turbulence, a lack of perception can become reality long enough for us to forget where it is that we’re going.

Maybe that’s why we love Saturdays in the fall so much. Maybe that’s why I get chills every time I watch the videos from this past weekend of people losing their minds on the Strip, with that inevitably catchy song playing in the background: “Home,” by Phillip Phillips.

Because although the faces and the names change, we find some constants here, and that’s reassuring. So, if you can stop moving long enough to finish reading this column, I suggest taking some time to appreciate what makes this place so great. For me, it’s being able to see the leaves turn in early November along the Black Warrior; it’s a bike ride through the vibrant country air on Sanders Ferry Road; it’s all the colors and smells of the Quad on a crisp fall Gameday.

It seems in some ways we are frozen in time here, floating in a strange space between what we were, what we are and what we want to be when we grow up. Still, we incessantly hurtle forward; reaching out desperately in a futile attempt to stop the world from spinning under our feet, even as we grasp curiously at tomorrow. I guess I probably think too much about tomorrow.

There is so much about Tuscaloosa and ourselves that is moving and changing. But sometimes we can embrace the turbulence; we are able to forget – if only for precious fleeting moments – that we’re all just passing through. And maybe that’s enough.

Henry Downes is a sophomore majoring in economics. His column runs on Tuesdays.