Breezes

There is freedom waiting for you,
On the breezes of the sky,
And you ask "What if I fall?"
Oh but my darling,
What if you fly?
― Erin Hanson

The autumn afternoon was sunny and crisp. I was playing outside with my one and a half year old son, Ocean, when we heard the hum of an engine overhead.

“Look! It’s a biplane,” I told him, crouching down and pointing to the speck of aircraft skimming through the sky. By accident one day while driving down an unfamiliar road, I’d discovered a small airport on a hill just a few miles from our house. Ever since, I’d taken special note of the single-engine planes which would often buzz overhead, criss-crossing the sky as though sending me a message. Watching with my son, my heart twisted with an old ache.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve dreamed of flying. I played it in make-believe games as a child and envisioned it vividly while asleep. My arms becoming wings with which I could swoop and soar. The first time I rode on an airplane, I was enamored with takeoff, that great lifting into the sky as everything below shrunk to miniatures and the view from the window became nothing but clouds. Eventually, I went skydiving; the rush of the fall and the floating parachute are the closest I’ve come to the feeling of having wings (though “falling with style” is a more apt description of the experience).

Towards the end of my five years in Ecuador, I pondered what I’d want to do when I returned to the States. An admin job seemed likely, and … anything else? If I could do anything, what would I pursue? A number of ideas played out in my head, with one giving off a consistent and tantalizing glow of interest: becoming a pilot. Flying.

In the investigation of this dream, I went on two test flights. The first was with a pilot friend of my sister. A gregarious man with long dreadlocks and a big smile, he walked my sister and I to his airplane - a one-engine plane called a light aircraft - and went through the steps of checking the outside settings, wing flaps, and tires. We boarded: I took the co-pilot seat and put on a headset. Down the runway we taxied, gaining momentum for liftoff. There’s nothing like being in the front of a tiny plane to appreciate how gravity is being defied. When we were at cruising altitude, he gave me control of the steering wheel, guiding me through how to keep level with the horizon and which instruments to watch on the daunting dashboard. When he needed to communicate with air traffic control, he told me what to say and had me relay the message across the crackling radio.

Even with the constant drone of the engine and the acceptance that one small mistake of the pilot, failure of the plane, or outside force could cause catastrophe (something I felt more keenly than ever while handling the fresh proposition of going to flight school), I felt calm. It was thrilling, yet soothing. Tranquility hummed through my veins.
”I think I could do this,” I thought.

The real test came after we’d landed and he let me steer the plane along the runway, which, even at a relatively slow speed, was much more challenging than anticipated. In that moment the plane felt huge. I navigated it drunkenly down the runway while the pilot laughed and corrected my steering as needed.

The pilot’s love of flying was contagious. He was at home in the sky, telling me, “It’s something I earned which no one can take away from me.”

I met with instructors at two flight schools, yet each time I felt as though something wasn’t right. The instructors and schools were older and seemed as though they could be a step behind current times, not something which bolstered confidence in such a technical field. The second instructor I met with encouraged me to go on a test flight with him, and though that second flight confirmed my love of being in the air and general ease (at least in the copilot seat), my trust was shaken after we landed and he rang up the steep price for our little excursion. He hadn’t mentioned any cost, and the insinuation I’d drawn from his offer was that a test flight was part of checking out the school. I should have asked up front. Even so, I was taken aback.

Money and time were factors which made me put the aspiration on pause. I would have had to take out a loan to afford classes. I was only a few months into my transition back to the US and had just taken on a car loan, and had other debt to pay off. I was still figuring out what the monthly expenses looked like at my new apartment, with US prices being higher than those in South America. Also, I was finally reconnecting with friends and family I’d been away from for five years, and knew that if I committed to flight school I’d have little free time to finally give to those relationship. I longed for the sky, yet it didn’t feel like the right time. My gut told me to wait, so I did.

Four years have passed since those test flights. As I knelt beside Ocean and watched the little plane soar overhead, I had a moment of thinking how the pilot up there could have been me … and how I’m thankful it wasn’t. When I turned from the blue sky to look into the blue of my son’s eyes, I’m thankful to not be anywhere or anyone else. The path I chose instead took me to marriage and motherhood, the greatest loves of my life.

I still dream of flying. Yet, it’s not a gap to fill. It’s a wish, one I came closer to grasping than others, though it’s not one which burns within me. Maybe one day the time will be right, yet now that I’m a mother I’m wary of grappling with something which holds such an obvious risk of taking me away from my children. Instead, I’m pursuing another dream, writing, which gives me wings of a different kind.

That autumn afternoon outside with my son, the whirr of the plane engine sounded overhead multiple times. I followed its path across the sky, remembering. When I stood, Ocean raised his arms to me, urgent to be up, up, up, so I lifted him high, tossing him into the air above my head and catching him. How beautiful it is to make him laugh. To make him fly.