stories

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My soulmate and I got married :)

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I want both of us

To start talking about this great love


As if you, I, and the Sun were all married

And living in a tiny room,


Helping each other to cook,

Do the wash,

Weave and sew,

Care for our beautiful

Animals.


We all leave each morning

To labor on the earth’s field.

No one does not lift a great pack.


I want both of us to start singing like two

Traveling minstrels

About this extraordinary existence

We share,


As if

You, I, and God were all married


And living in

A tiny

Room.

 ~Hafiz

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Final classroom cleaning: check
Apartment: almost cleaned. still have the kitchen to do!
Grades: done
Goodbyes said: sorta
Weird feeling of leaving somewhere I’m attached to? Check.
Most amazing woman in the whole wide world to go hang out with for the rest of my life? Check.
Flying to do? Check.
Summer is here? Check.

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..to take off from a small airstrip in a small town in the largest state on a beautiful springtime day.

Sitting in the pilot’s seat (left): shana, the coolest girl in the whole world.

Sitting in the co-pilot seat (right): heidi, an astoundingly incredible pilot & flight instructor

Sitting in the back seat and enjoying the ride: yours truly

photography, stories

…and graham crackers, too.

Quaker oatmeal squares, long time king of my breakfast realm, have finally been dethroned, and I do believe peaches and graham crackers and yogurt is (are?) here to stay. Mmm.

(null)

photography, stories

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rob & 65 quebec. he flew me out to nondalton, along with 300 pounds of groceries. rob and darla continue to be some of my favorite people in the world.
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and this one is my favorite.

somehow, by some absolutely wild fortune beyond my grasp, i'm this girl's guy. i don't know how we struck it so good, but i like it :)
somehow, by some absolutely wild fortune beyond my grasp, i’m this girl’s guy. i don’t know how we struck it so good, but i like it :)
other, photography, stories

Today, today was a good day.

A great fellow from here, Adam, took me out looking for spruce hens this morning. Which mean riding up the lake shore, to the channel between six mile lake and lake clark, than riding up the shore of lake clark, seeing the sun peer out over the snow crested mountains, then riding back. All the way, Adam showed me interesting things about here, this place, and the life. Tracks, trails, mountains, names, old stories. On the way back, 5 minutes from town, we finally come across a spruce hen and Adam shot it perfectly (no damage to the meat). He was gracious enough to give it to me to try, and so my lunch was much more delicious then it normally is.

After that, I lounged around, took a nap, lounged around some more, and then had some wonderful long chats :).

Here are some pictures of the morning’s trip, and lunch.

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Tomorrow I’ll grab my stuff and jump onto a little airplane for an hour flight through some very pretty mountains to my new home, Nondalton. The four days that follow will be no less then sheer madness, and on the fifth day will be the wildest, funnest, and craziest thing we teachers go through: the first day of school!

I’m pretty sure the whole ‘unpacking & settling in’ thing is going to have to wait for labor day.

So far I have been amazed by how wonderful this district is. These folks know how it’s done and I’m honored (and..frankly..moderately trepidated!) to be a part of their team. I am left awe-struck time after time at the deeply rooted care and devotion exhibited by all staff I encounter–teachers, admins, ed. support, business–and championed by the superintendent. It’s incredible. This is a good, good place to be.

———-

Now, on flying! I just finished an absolutely excellent book about flying, “The Thinking Pilot’s Flight Manual.” I highly recommend it–it’s the best stuff I have read thus far in my (short) aviation career. Here are a few notes from the lighthearted-but-poignant last section, a compilation of truths and opinions all come by the hard way:

The weather is not going to get better in the next 5 miles. 

One close encounter with a tower or a set of power lines appearing out of the haze or fog when scud-running, or going below minimums on an instrument approach, will give you years of the most hideously vivid nightmares  you can imagine. 

Tornadoes really are caused by mobile homes. In hot, muggy weather, be cautious of airports near mobile home parks.

When making a decision regarding weather, an effective tool is to ask oneself if this might lead to looking stupid in the NTSB report.

Departing with one component of a redundant system out of service will make the other one fail in flight.

Everyone looks silly wearing a headset.

Males over age thirty look ridiculous dressed in military flight suits when near a civilian airplane. The effect is amplified if the pilot in question has a pot belly. If he has any patches or wings on the jumpsuit, he is an embarrassment to the airplane, and there is a good chance it is secretly laughing at him.

A pilot with any poetry in his or her soul knows that it is always appropriate to quietly thank the airplane for a flight after putting it away. In fact, some assert that those who do not do so may have no soul, and should not be allowed in the sky.

The cliche is depressingly true: the chances of making a superb landing are inversely proportional to the number of people watching.

The rainbow around your airplane’s shadow on a cloud is called a glory. The first time you see one, the name will make eminent sense.

There is nothing more beautiful than this world when viewed from aloft.

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The old adage says that the only constant in life is change. I sit here in a coffee shop down on the Kenai, exactly where I sat two years ago on the brink of beginning a new life as a classroom teacher, and now I am a few days away from beginning a new life, again, as a teacher in a new district. There are a lot of things that’ve changed, there are lots of things that are the same.

There were lots of times when I laughed until I cried and there were times I cried and cried and cried, but never cried until there was nothing left but to laugh. My childhood dream of flying has come true. I learned more then I ever thought there was to learn about life and death and happiness and sadness from my students and the community I was so lucky to call home. I have two lovely nieces now–I am excited to teach them to fly some day. So much life!

Thought on life and its constant change: the most important thing in the world is the time we share with the ones we care about.

Five or six years ago when I was quite close to finishing up my degree, I had this funny thought that I may someday go teach and fly in Alaska. It feels good to have made it! Now I have this funny thought that someday I’ll learn to fly instruments, get a commercial certificate and fly part 135 (charter/air taxi) in the summer time. It may happen, it may not, regardless it’s a fun funny thought to have :).

This is a haphazard post already, so how about one of my favorite book quotes? Yeah!

Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.

-Zora Neale Hurston, from “Their Eyes Were Watching God”

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This time, in Bettles!

I passed my checkride, got checked out in the Ercoupe, then buzzed around a few times to get comfortable. Then it was time to sally out on my first real xc trip as a private pilot. The trip–going and returning–was both beautiful and challenging. Some weather gave me a pretty good run for my money on the return trip. Lots of zigging around cloud obscured hills, refiguring my route when I couldn’t make it the way I’d planned. It was tiring but a great experience, and it helped me to realize just how much I appreciate the things that Forest taught me :). To top it off, there was a stunner of a big blue sky in Bettles saturday evening–combined with the photogenic Ercoupe, it made for a lovely panorama. I highly recommend the Bettles Lodge–the staff is super friendly and the lodge is beautiful.

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I am prone to write here, possibly to a fault, about how I have wanted to fly as long as I can recall–I spent large amounts of my childhood jumping off of things to get a tiny little bit of the thrill of flying, yada yada yada. I’ve posted about ‘milestones’ here–my first flight lesson, my first rotary wing lesson, my first solo. In this mortal coil the happy milestones we pass sometimes terminate at a crossroads, one of those beautiful places in life with big surreal views of life and all it is. In those places, we chose where we will go next. I came to a crossroads yesterday.

I’M A PILOT! HAH HAAAA! WHOOOHOOOOO!

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I have a little story to tell. It starts just like one my regular summertime days here in fairbanks–I get up around 8, eat a bowl of cereal, brush my teeth, go to the coffee shop to get coffee (surprise, right?), read the comics and get the weather report for my flight lesson, which is usually at 10. The weather looked good. I was excited to go fly–the previous day, I’d done well with my landings and I was eager to do it again. We did pattern work, and sure enough I was landing safely and correctly each time–Forest* didn’t even have to say anything, or touch any of the controls. It felt good. At the end of the lesson Forest says: why don’t you come back at 1:30? We’ll do another lesson. Cool, I thought! If I keep this up, I’ll be able to land really well every time in a week or two, then maybe I’ll be able to solo!

I come back at 1:30, and we do more pattern work. It went well, just like the morning lesson. I was close to getting my landing on target each time, and it felt good. At the end of the lesson, for some reason, Forest asked for plane right after we landed–which is funky, usually he lets me taxi and park. Funky, but ok, I’m sure there’s a good reason. I take my hands and feet off the controls and Forest takes the plane. He fast-taxis (like taxiing, but, well, fast. about 40mph) down the runway, turns on the taxiway, then immediately pulls off the taxiway into some random parking spot. Funky, but ok, I’m sure there’s some reason. Forest pulls out airplane logbook and logs the flight, puts it away, then pulls out my logbook from the behind-the-seat wall pocket and begins to log the flight lesson. Funky, but ok, I’m sure there’s some–oh. Uh. Now he has turned to the back of my logbook and is filling in the student solo-flight forms. Oh. Ohhh. At this point, I say something like “Ummm..Forest..you’ve got my gears turning here..I’m kinda wondering..” and he smirks for a moment, then finishes filling out the form.

“Just keep doing what you’ve been doing. You need three takeoffs and landings–come back and pick me up when you’re done. Don’t forget, you need to call ground to ask to taxi for takeoff. Oh and hang on a second, I need to get my coat. Ok, go have fun.”

And with that, Forest hopped out of the plane, closed the door, and lit a cigarette.

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That’s my logbook. See the second line up, where it says “solo?”
*”Forest,” i.e. Forest Kirst, CFII, is the flight instructor I’ve been learning from. He is outstanding.
ideas, other, stories

I spend some time here & there thinking about why I fly. The trivial answer is: because I like to! Of course this begs the not trivial question: why do I like to fly?

Try this: look away and close your eyes for about 30 seconds, and before you open them take three deep & slow breaths. Exactly when you open your eyes, not a moment later, observe the object that happens to be centered in your gaze. What color is it, how is its texture? Is it old or new? Good. Now think about how you saw that object when you opened your eyes. Hopefully there was a fleeting moment, a peculiar moment, in which you saw things differently. Like a quickly fading dream or deja vu, the moment you think about it, it is gone. Dust blown into the wind.

Now. Imagine: when you closed your eyes, suddenly you popped into an other world. This is a magical world–it looks a lot like the one we live in, but also somehow looks different. There are different rules, all sorts of terrifying things that can kill you very very quickly, and  best of all, a new type of freedom you’ve never felt before. You have been well trained for the dangers and rules, and you can handle them without too much worry or panic. You can spare some time and energy to soak up the beauty and freedom of this mystic world. And when you open your eyes you are back in this world–you don’t see just one thing newly, you see it all. The whole world. The problems, the pain, the beauty, the suffering and the laughter, you see anew. You stop and smell a flower.

Just like when you closed your eyes a minute ago, this moment fades too. A bit slower, albeit. Soon, maybe ten minutes or maybe a few hours, you have re-calibrated and you function in this world just as you did before you closed your eyes. Well, almost. There is a residual after effect…you are a little bit calmer and a little bit happier. And you remember the other world. And you will be back.

That other world is the sky, and that is why I like to fly.

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–is its dynamic nature.

I mean, we are talking crazy. This is teleporting from the surface of pluto to the surface of the sun in oh, like, 15 minutes.

Ok..so, to be honest, maybe sometimes it is too dynamic. But not often. Most of the time, the worst of the worst comes right before the type of great day that makes me want to sit and stare out the window and savor the feeling and not forget it ever, ever, ever.

Like friday* was one of those beautiful days. Incredible. I worked really, really really hard and used every trick I know, and it all worked. Clockwork. Swiss clockwork with half a gazillion ruby crystal bearings. The kids understood me well, they worked hard, they were helpful, and everybody learned and had fun. Lovely. Did I mention that thursday was positively hell on wheels?

I think this dynamic nature of teaching appeals to me so because it tells of the human condition. Generally, a rough day for me means that one or more of my students was having a bad day. When a day goes from being the worst day ever to being the best day ever (for me, that is), that correspondingly means that one or more of my students exhibited some great resilience and heart and went from having a miserable time to having a hoot: smiling, laughing, and learning. And I love that about humans, resilience and heart and the ability to recover and stand up and do well. And when I see that in my students, well, lets just say the stark beauty of it has gotten me misty-eyed on more then one occasion.

*This was from sometime late april ’14, written on a monday.