Longest Flight

Last night I took off and flew for an hour and forty minutes. My longest flight this far.

Here are some quick details to explain why this flight was amazing. Cold air is thicker than warm air. This is an important detail because summer flying is very different than spring or fall flying. Temperatures have been very hot and dry this year. About a week ago, it started dropping to the low 60's at night and maxing out in the eighties during the day. So in the evening the air is cooling while warm sunlight is still heating.

We fly in two kinds of ‘lift’, thermals and ridge lift. Sunlight (heat) creates invisible thermals (think of dust devils) and ridge lift, (think of air as water and what does moving water do when it hits a wall? It breaks and rises. The air hitting the mountain ridge travels up it in a wave of 'ridge lift').

K, so there are the terms. I took off and the air was thick and warm with little rivers of cool washing over me. It wasn't hard AT all to fly up and reach the back ridge. Rather than sharp jostles, which I am familiar with this summer, the rocking felt like being in a boat in a bit of waves.

And the lift... the highest I had ever been before was 6750 ft. Last night the air lifted and lifted and somehow I was 7530 ft. in the air. I was above everyone else (for once) and alone and it disconcertingly odd to look around and see how very far up I was in that big blue and orange evening sky.

It’s scary to fly away from the hill. There is a mental block that happens. I, like many pilots, mentally latch on to the place I take off from. I do not want to get too far away from it. While there are some flight restrictions (airline paths and heights), this fear of leaving the ridge is actually counter intuitive. Technically the further you are up and away from things, the less there is to possibly run into. I know this. Karl repeats it over and over again, trying to help me see past it.

I twisted around to look at the far away landing zones, at the teeny tiny tree tops and houses and thought 'Whoa..." The Wind Woman was humming, busy dressing trees for the coming autumn festival. I could see the glimmer of red and orange in the mountains, her handiwork about to be on full display.

The last ten years came crashing down on me with a vengeance; my journey to me. I was filled up to tears with gratitude and just as quickly, filled with jealous fear. I have this fantastic life. I belong with this beautiful man I call my husband. I have the sweetest most darling dog, who I call my friend because she is so much more intelligent and interesting than a regular dog. I have a lovely home, a black and white bratty gentle cat. I get to do everything I love. I am never bothered by things like enough food, a safe place to rest or the ability to get what I need.

My job sucks, I wish I would ‘grow a pair’ and try publishing my book again, I wish I had more time to paint but these trivial complaints are swallowed whole by the fantastic force called my life.

It occurred to me that this life might not go on forever and this seemed painfully unjust and unfair. The Wind Woman came to laugh at the sudden knot in my throat. She touched my legs and traveled up to wrap a brief warm scarf of air around my shoulders in a gentle hug.

‘Look at your hands…’ she whispered. I looked in wonder at my hands. I stretched out my arms, reached out my fingers, and I ‘air-planed’, rocking myself to each side. Before she rushed off she reminded me ‘Live for each moment, live in each season…’

Sunflower

Darting dreams unfold around me. School is finalizing, the hard work and word swallowing venture nearly done! I have a new and promising job in THE town I resent most (sixteen years after I declared my eternal distain). But despite my nearly outright hostility, every day I find tentative open friendliness.


We bought a house in the place my dearest’s heart has always desired. I had held the neighborhood at a wary arm’s length until I was won over by a combination of yellow and black paint and a wayward yard with hopeful slender trees.

As I sludge through the last of homework, of classes, putting in an average of three hours a day driving on six hours of sleep, packing one house, unpacking another, cleaning both; just knowing the end of the madness is coming, I wake up in a ridiculously good mood (albeit a little bleary eyed). Not painting, not reading, not day dreaming, flying, I still have the energy to finish.

Until Last night, when my hands woke me at 4am, (thank God not 3am).

I stretched my fingers, greeting the familiar ache, the strange cold feeling in my palms, listening to the gentle tap of the wind chime outside.

My thoughts drifted to my easel, sitting naked and neglected in a room crammed with boxes and lime green nasty walls: My paints are out of reach in stacks of bubble wrap, locked in with tape. My fingertips burned.

I slipped out of bed, padded past my sleeping dog and down the stairs to the basement. Digging through a box I found a pen and blank piece of white paper and feverish sketched. And what fell out of my hands?

Hello Sunflower

Update: Painted a proper sunflower

13" X 9" (Loose canvas paper)

Original Fine Art - Acrylic (Sealed to protect against fading/UV)

Grandpa

On Sunday I had a call from my Mom.  She was concerned about my Grandpa, who advised her and Dad on Friday that he ‘can’t do this anymore’.  His appetite had been non-existent for weeks.  So I chopped up apples and made up my apple crisp and down we went at 4pm. 

This turned out to be a special night for me.  As soon as  we arrived I went in to see Grandpa.  I reached out and put my young hand on his old hand and waited.  The room was warm and dimly lit with only the light from his chair stand.  His eyes were faded and far away and I waited until they slowly focused and began to see me. 

I told him I’d come to see him, that I’d brought my apple crisp.  He nodded and gathered himself and said “I miss her too much” as he twisted his wedding band.  My throat locked up and I took a deep breath as he continued and advised me in low gravely words, his eyes glancing away, “You’re Marji’s oldest girl.  I’m sorry but I am too tired for company. Thank you for coming by.”

I nodded, acknowledging his dismissal.... but I was determined not to push and to push at the same time.  I smiled at him sideways, appealing to him as much as I could, “Maybe you could come out in a little while and try a little of my apple crisp.  ...I made it for you.” I stood up only when I saw an infinitesimal nod that meant 'perhaps'...  but less promising was the click of the door that he stood to shut behind me.

I had put the apple dish in the oven when we first walked in and it was nearly done when dinner was done too.  When the smell of apple, cinnamon , nutmeg and brown sugar was intoxicating the house,  I heard his bedroom door click open and looked over to see my Grandpa standing there watching.

I had a moment.  There was my grey, faded and so thin Grandpa slowly straightening until he was the dark haired dashing man in the old photos I like to look at.  He knew he was dashing, he knew who he was, what he thought and for all his gruffness there was a wealth of intuition and kindness.

And then the moment passed and there was Grandpa again.  Clear sharp old eyes, eyes that saw how much I really wanted to see him once more and he asked aloud if he could have some of the apple crisp I had made for him.

We visited, we talked, we looked at pictures, he ate every single drop of sugar and apple, he told me I had some sense and teased me about my crooked front tooth. He reminded me how important it is to write down dates on my favorite pictures because someday, the summers would mix into each other and one could no longer be sure of when it was taken.

Reader, a while ago, in April of 2008 there was another moment with him.  I went in to visit with my Grandmother.  Her health was badly declined but she had Always rallied for visits with me.  As I had done so many times before, I knelt at her chair, I took her hand and I began to tell her a silly story about my Sally, or Daisy as she had liked to call my dog.

But she did not know me.  She could not come back from the world her faded eyes were looking into.  I was so caught by surprise I froze, in a child like panic, distraught and nearly in tears, I was ready to plead she see me –when my gruff Grandpa, a man I’d always been a bit wary of… reached over, patted my shoulder and said “Come visit with me child”, saving me from my embarrassing distress with his compassion.  

We started a conversation and I had the pleasure, for the first time, of really conversing with my Grandpa.  And since this moment, even after Grandmother's passing, this would happen again and again, we would talk about the people he knew, about the world as it was then and is now, about things I do (sports) and places we had seen.  We never had a serious or life changing conversation; but simple sunny, easy and breathing ones. 

Then, this last February, 2010, we celebrated his ninety fifth birthday.  He was excited to see all of us and so happy we were there.  He grinned and laughed quietly... but after that evening he has slowly gone away.  Throughout this year I see him less on visits and when I did, we talked very little and sometimes I felt he didn't see me at all.

Until this last Sunday, when he reached out and ‘patted’ my shoulder and let me talk with him again.  May I remember his grace Reader. May I be mindful of his kindness and hold on to the honor of being related to someone so insightful and gentle to me.

The Summer with Grandpa (2012)

I promise...

In three weeks and not one second more, this time of silenced hands and muted touch will flower to an end.  I will give to myself one day of entire day dreaming. 

One day of paint, wet and smooth, paint that will turn, that will become dry and caked; it will come off my fingers in flaking sighs of relief.  Dead skin dying and peeling back to let clean cells breath.  This panting heat of suppressed thoughts and coughing imagination will at last inhale the cool tender touch of a beloved friend who has been asked to wait, just to wait, just a little longer a little too long.

In three weeks I will create and gulp in the fragrant air of life and my art.

Unexpected Friend

Panting I press the button that increases the speed, the resistance level. The rhythmic sound of machines and feet is semi drowned out by my headphones. Next to me, I eavesdrop as an old man with a deep voice talks to a young man. His story telling voice mentions something about being grateful to be here, to be out of the struggle in the Sudan.

I glance up at the overhead television and the flashing pictures of Middle Eastern chaos. I am grateful too, I think. Without meaning to, I glance at him. He catches my eye, he nods to me and to himself. I smile back.

Somewhere around half way through, I realize he is struggling to keep going and that somehow we have established solidarity. He needs to stop to rest, to breath, to mop sweat from his silver white hair, before he can keep going. When he pauses, his thin arms shaking, he looks over at my machine's display. I pull the towel back from covering the summary, showing the level and time remaining. He nods again and continues.

For the last ten minutes I max out the level of resistance and push through as my heart flops like a soggy tomato in my chest, desperate to escape. I close my eyes in the last two and focus on just breathing, just moving. I am relieved as it mellows out in the ‘cool down’ and the setting automatically kicks down the level. Soon I can hear over the roaring blood in my hands.

I get to the end and remember my gym ‘friend’ and look over. He has made it too. He smiles at me and says quietly, “It is good. Good.” I smile back and go my own way.

Dreaming

EEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk..... The banging of loose ropes drumming the sides of this wooden ship is the only sound carried by the waves and wind. It staggers, heavy and creaking, through what is left of the wild storm.

Using my practiced sea legs I make it from one side of the lonely deck to the other.... where is everyone?

In the cabin I find a woman with long black hair wrapped in purple curled up on a bench, hands tucked under her. Beside her on the floor lies a tan and white dog who appears to be sleeping. Her lashes curl prettily along her high cheek bones but her exotic beauty is tempered by her ice white skin. She will not be waking. I leave them untouched in their permanent slumber.

What happened here? I search the rest of the ship. Gold coins lie scattered below deck, the hull is still sound but there isn't another soul but mine on board. The sky above is lit with the flames of clouds and dusk blended by the reflection of far off rain. The first stars study me on the horizon. I look back without understanding.

There are words in the wind behind me and I turn to see the faded translucent image of the girl and her dog standing behind me, her words scratch at my ears like a distressed kitten at a friendly hand, “What happened?”

The Wind Woman has come for her and she catches the girl up, jerking back her pleading hand before my puzzled solid voice can reply.

My dreams are my favorite part of sleeping. I love feeling rested and relaxed but I really love dreaming. Sometimes my anticipation is a little nerve-racking, especially when I have had a good set of nights in a row.

Skiing

Last winter we had a whole whooping two days on snow but my drill instructor danced down the ridges with me, repeatedly shouting, "Turn! Hands forward, drive with your hands! Turn again!" etc.

The result was that I graduated from easy greens to easy blues in those two days.

This year I was a grinning little kid as we packed up our car and drove up the mountain. Excited isn't the right word for my anticipation. Thrilled, giddy, silly; these might be better descriptive words.

What I lack in skills I more than make up for in enthusiasm. There are very few outdoor sports I have mastered.  Even hiking poises risks. I have the attention span of a gnat and it’s only a matter of time before I twist an ankle going down a hill because of my lack of attention.

But skiing is fantastic; bitter cold, blinding sunshine, millions of layers, and my upside down cartwheels in the snow when I missed the turn -! There aren't words for the fluttering fear and exhilaration as I study a 'steeper hill then usual' and conquer it with only a couple of good falls. Hyperventilating and triumphant I speed forward, stretching my arms and fingers out to catch the wind.

I love living.