Flying into the past

I love the idea of flying west to east across the international date line into the night cutting through it to see the dawn. I also love the idea of flying east to west across the Pacific to try to stay in the light. On this flight from Beijing to San Francisco, I slept a bit, watched some programming, read, and watched some Downton Abbey. One more episode to finish the second season. Anything over six hours in a plane becomes extremely uncomfortable and a bit of a marathon. I have two hours left of this flight and I probably don't smell great or look too great. Once I get to San Francisco, I can change clothes, use some body spray, deodorant. Maybe a store will have some dry shampoo, but no certainties. I should be back in St. Louis in twelve hours and in twenty-six hours I will be heading to a rehearsal. I am going to miss that day of rest I had scheduled which was swallowed by my cancelled flight in Beijing. Luckily my room is clean and many of my clothes are clean, I just have to unpack and buy some food and caffeinated beverages. Then class on Monday. Back to busyness and not looking forward to it yet.
Now we are approaching San Francisco and the sky begins to turn blue from the black it was before. The dark of the ocean blends with the lighter azure of the sky. Then comes the line of palest yellow which fades to the palest blue with no green between - straight yellow to blue. Then we descend to the fog and I can no longer tell what is sea and sky. Slowly blue fades to white and I see the tops of clouds and pink demarcates the sky and a final horizon. The pink spreads to peach and purple and a smeared watercolor sits above the white clouds. No wonder we flew so fast to meet the dawn. The molten honey of the sun outlines the faded plum mountains of a distant fairyland. Deep purple blue darkness breaks out from beneath the clouds and I don't know if it is sea or mountains until one shows a velvety moss covering wrapped in morning gray. All becomes clear as rough mountains frame the end of the color-streaked sky but mist still obscures more past the horizon as we fly into the mist and leave clarity behind.
But the concerning thing about flying west to east across the Pacific is that technically I arrived in San Francisco before I left Beijing. I am now in the past because I have now been in two places twice at the same time. A bit trippy.