It seems so long ago that I was studying for and blogging about my written exam, even though it was only last summer that I finally wrote and passed that beast!
The months that have passed since I have had to step back from finishing my PPL due to weather, time and financial reasons have been hectic, and I have tried to suppress my desire to be behind the controls of a Cessna by busying myself with other projects: Focussing on my Math/Tech research at work, redesigning my twins prenatal class website with a friend of mine, and developing a series of related podcasts to supplement same, preparing for my upcoming move to Argentina for the year… Sometimes I almost manage to convince myself that it's not such a big deal that I probably won't ever finish my PPL, that it doesn't really matter that I've never fly again, that it was nice just to be able to say I flew a plane once (a few times), by myself when I was in my 30s...
Argh, but being back in an airplane, even a giant, impersonal, commercial airliner like this one, makes me hungry for piloting an aircraft by myself once again.
(Did I really venture out on my own to complete a cross-country flight that included three different airports, without the safety of a competent flight instructor by my side? I’m not sure I’d even be able to fly a circuit now, with or without an instructor, lol!)
Soon, most of the windows are open, and those of us lucky enough to have window seats are gazing out at the wispy clouds drifting along below, roving lazily above the denser, puffier cloud cover beneath them, like feathery nomads without a clear destination in mind.
Sleep deprivation is erased by the welcome morning light, calling our tired bodies into a revised daytime mode. Periodically, there are breaks to be seen through the clouds, and a bit of land or sometimes even a river appears underneath.
As I listen to Doug Riley’s “Peace Dance” (from his 1990 Freedom album) through my headphones, and look out onto the rolling white cloud hills and pale, thick cloud blankets below, I yearn to be looking out at them in the distance rather than from above; my suddenly desperate preferred perspective is about 15-20 thousand feet below, from the left seat of a Cessna, in control of whether and how close I get to these mysterious and often dangerous creatures.
If only there were a way....