Beachy

Today was a wonderful day - another day at the beach. For the first time ever I walked on the beach in the dark. There were a lot of people strolling with flashlights. The stars were twinkling while the waves rolled in and out. We saw a crab swimming and a very big bird fishing. Today began and ended with a long walk along the shore. We spent several hours in the water resting in tubes. I got so much water in my face from a wave that my sinuses are still a little salty. That bird that we saw tonight was magnificent gliding back and forth.

clear prop

Here we are at 3am and I am awake as usual! Fortunately we're at the beach. Being at the beach is very close to being in the air on my "favorite places to be" list. Where else? I'm starting to think that even though I am afraid of motorcycles that maybe, just maybe, safe and snug with someone I trust driving (steering?) I might just love a motorcycle ride through the mountains. It's good to be at the beach.

This was a crazy week. Started Monday with a flight. I can't remember any of the details except to say it was a training flight and my steep turns sucked. I get +/- 50' , +/- 10 KIAS. I was using up 200'. It's something I've never done - I'm pulling the entry. Well I was. I cut it out on Friday's flight. I also saw favorite CFI on Monday. He's no longer around so that was a nice surprise. He looked happy and healthy. It was good to see him looking well. I enjoyed thinking about some of the important things I learned with him, because of him. Some people pass through your life leaving you better than they found you. I hope I am that kind of CFI. I hope I am that kind of person.
On Friday I flew two flights plus the sim. The sim flight was very cool. Glass. I was supposed to be working on steep turns just below a cloud layer. It was an interesting experiment. I could easily see what I was doing to mess myself up. Next we flew. There's a small field about 22 miles west of my home field. I rocked the performance landings - wait! That wasn't Fridays flight because my ST still stank that day. I loved that day because I heard myself say, "It is really beautiful over here". I can't believe how beautiful it is over here. On Friday it was super hazy and I opted for the SE Training area - my steep turns weren't too bad. Later I flew a purely for fun flight with a young CFI who I like but hadn't had the opportunity to fly with. He said,"DeAnn, if you put your pant leg over that vent it'll really help you stay cool". It was so funny. I laughed and laughed. He asked, "Why'd that make you laugh ~ "I'm serious", he said, "... it's a greenhouse in this thing!" I told him I liked doing that but someone I flew with said doing stuff like that just blows your stink all around the plane. It just made me laugh to remember. I smell good most of the time. I have been distracted by how things non-airplane smell while in the plane ... I just don't cozy up with the vents anymore!
I had fun flying the arrow with this guy. The airplane cabin was blisteringly hot and the airplane climbed poorly. The performance was below par in all areas. It was easy to execute steep turns in though. Nose heavy enough to compensate for my new tendency to pull early. I didn't hate flying it. Right before we departed for that fun flight, a training flight landed gear up. The airplane, other than the very problematic prop strike, looked surprising okay. All the antennae are sheared off the belly, but I was surprised to see how symmetric the skid marks are. The marks on the runway show the prop whacking itself on the asphault about every three foot for several rotations...the governor and crankshaft and on back into the engine probably look pretty sad. It was a check ride. A commercial practical test type check ride. It's gonna hurt the pilots, particularly the check pilot who has probably had his hand on the gear lever many thousands of times. It makes me very sad to think of him in this mess.

So here we are at the beach floating in the 12th story corner unit. If I open the front sliding door and the back sliding door the gulf air venturi s through almost lifting my cares in the process.

Finishing

I have accepted that I am tired. I'm going to bed and to sleep earlier. Last night I woke up less often than what has become usual. Today, I'm going to drink my delicious hot coffee and then I'm going to go outside and walk around in my yard...do a little weeding. I'll go out to the airport at 11:00 to take care of some paperwork for tonight's meeting - beginning the summer semester.

All my CFI candidate buddies are gone. That has freaked me out just a tad - now I have the departure brief on each one of them and things make more sense. I've thought about myself as a young woman running track. I ran long distance and because of my height I also jumped for the team. I didn't take to hurdles. I didn't like setting a pace that accommodated leaping over fences. I didn't like how the hurdles appeared to get higher as I approached them. It was sickenning to imagine myself face first into the gravel...bloody and tangled up...broken. That's how this process towards the big check ride had started to feel. And when my fellow runners disappeared I started gnawing on what they knew that I hadn't figured out.

So I am re-booting. I'm gonna rest a bit and I'm gonna come out for this last lap.

Here we are rocketing down the road. This 12+ hour drive began at one today. Now it's tenthirty. I'm sitting in the back seat while my son drives and chats softly with his dad. I like hearing them laugh together. My son drives way too fast like I do. I am assessing the risks... The safety subroutine is running. His reflexes are better than mine but his experience is limited... Dads watching, but he would agree with me that he is not as vigilant a driver as I. How do the tires on the vehicles around me look... Is that car holding steady on his lane ... Cars are stopped ahead and seriously there is a horrible stomach turning wreck site. We've moved past Did I do everything as I should have he just asked and his dad said yes. I can see his shoulders are tense now. He's never seen a mess like that. He has settled into a speed 15 mph slower than he was running ... He's decided that he is law abiding I guess Now we've passed perpindicular to some flashing approach lights. I'm the only one in the car who noticed...the only one who would be interested MALSR? So many pieces to remember. I was going to write about something specific when I began tonight. I was just settling in when everything ahead became red.

Reflections on Trust

17 July - I realized that my sin causes God to feel bad. Previously I had seen my wrong behavior as hurting only me (and maybe the people around me) - it seemed not that important - like my bad - my transgressions didn't seem big enough to reach God. My heart hadn't seen the idea that my mess making actually grieves God ... and that I don't have to be consumed by the emotions or influences that carry me towards behavior that is less than.

The Bible talks about a worthy walk:
1 Thes.5:15 Walk in manner worthy of your calling for which you have been called with all gentleness and humility with patience showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit.
Phil 1:27...walk worthy of the Gospel
1 Thes.2:12...walk worthy of God
That kind of walking has to be done with my hand in God's hand. That requires trust.

I remember the joy found when each of my children began their first faltering steps. I think God has been patiently waiting for me to think of walking towards Him...walking with Him.

I also noted the idea that as a believer, I don't have to get upset when things don't appear to be going as I want/expect is best. I can trust those things unseen because I can trust the God unseen. Faith is the substance of things unseen yet believed.

American King James Version - Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

By faith I accept that the invisible things of God are behind the visible. (Heb. 11:3). I've seen this verse used to try to manipulate God - I'm not thinking about it like that here. All I'm thinking is I can trust or have faith in God ... confident that He's caring about me regardless of how things look or how I feel. My anxieties are legimate cares (maybe) that He says I can "cast on Him".


5 August - I wanted to blow off the importance of an event because my actions helped create a mess...and then my actions weren't enough to clean up the mess. I don't like messes and in this case I didn't like the pain of the mess. I felt angry, trapped, by the ridiculousness of it. When there seemed to be nothing I could do about the situation I thought to forget it. People say, "Women are not good at just letting things go...". One of my friends at work says that, and I've heard it off and on over the years. I tend to disagree, based on my experience with myself. I am very good at dismissing things - even things that should matter - the song line "my give a damn is busted..." frequently me. Dismissing, diminishing, disrespecting, disappearing...all ways of letting it go... All examples of how I learned to protect myself from pain...and sometimes the growth that might result from facing it. On 5 August I didn't blow it off as I wanted to and normally would have. Why? I've wondered. I have actually tried to blow it off a few times since but was unable to. Why? I don't really know the answer to that, but I think it's because I careduh. I cared, because I had chosen to trust this person - my messmaking buddy. Apparently, that commitment - extending trust - comes with or brings or opens other things up too. In this case, I would very much like not to care, but I do. I do not like how that care makes me feel.
The struggle of wanting to blow it off (as nicely as possible) and the pull towards growing up a little took me to 1 Cor 13. This one little event - a mess I participated in - led me to understand that my messedupness interacting with the messedupness of others is going to result in some big messes. The best I can do is stay as close to the model expressed in 1 Cor 13. Yeah - I'm not very good at it, it's hard, but I'm not going to get better at it by blowing off places to practice it. Protects,Trusts,Hopes,Perseveres...Loves. It's always okay to love. Love calls me to stay engaged even when it hurts. This one event is relatively insignificant as an event, it was a pebble tossed in a pond. The ripples are radiating out - they express the significance. I like it that God is good at finding a way to get my attention - to get me to understand. I am grateful.

In this particular case I have accepted that this mess won't be resolved ... cleaned up ... something - a jar of peaches - fell off of a shelf and got broken ... tiny glass shards, fruit and stickysticky peach juice scattered on the floor ... and everyone walked around it and moved on to the next aisle. I stood there for awhile waiting and thinking - trying. This March, 9mnts later, I realized that I didn't have to stand there any longer. I think I learned some stuff about trust and caring ... and love while I was there and I can take that with me. I stood in my mess and now I don't have to anymore.

Maybe I learned not to run so carelessly through the store. Maybe I learned not to bump my basket into stuff. I hope I learned something - I'm waiting to see how the lessons are expressed. Learning can be defined as a change in behavior as a result of experience.

Maybe I'm learning to put myself (and my stuff) in God's hands. I don't think it's wrong to leave this little thing and maybe even some of my big things in God's hands - I'm not fond of that expression because it sounds so churchy and ...I don't know... I just have a negative reaction to it... it seems weak even though I realise it takes a lot of strenght to lay things down. What I really mean is God was watching when the peaches fell. I hope that His love makes this mess right... I hope with all my heart. And I am so sorry that I am a messy little thing. I like to clean up my own messes but this time I can't and I'm counting on God.

25 August I noted a random text (following) written on the day of (before) the broken peach jar incident - I think some of the most interesting and life informing adventures have been mundane circumstances...interpersonal journeys with the everyday people around me. I would have liked to have experienced the exotic flavors of far away places - but I realize today that adventures are where you find them. We are jars of clay housing adventuring souls ~ I said that ... I believe that. It was a simple note to a friend of one of my children within the context of choices he was trying to make.

On 2 August I wrote: Recently, I have learned that "trust" is a key component in adventures of the soul. I am a novice at trust. I see close enough to have meaningful dialogue as close enough to hurt me. I have thought that it was my job to protect myself. I'm starting to realize that it's not my job and in fact it may very well be one of the ways I make messes around myself! Protecting me seems to be God's job ... if I am His it just follows that looking out for me is His business ... and when I look out for myself, not only am I trying to do his job, but I am resisting movement (of my self towards areas of perceived personal discomfort)towards where He may actually want me to be. It's complicated by the fact that I am expected to make some choices - even choices about protecting myself. Trust while difficult for me is worth working at. Trust is Faith.

CS Lewis wrote that you can not sample joy without a side of pain ... the two are interwoven. I don't want to hurt...and I really don't want to hurt other people...most people probably feel the same way. I do want to be courageous in putting myself out there for those life shaping - soul growing - journeys. Last week I was thinking about the pearl inside the oyster and the aggravation that produces that thing of beauty/value. I remembered that the book of Revelation describes the gates of heaven as being made of a solid pearl. I can see the possibility of symbolism there.

I am comfortable with the fact that I will never fly the big airplanes or the other cool stuff that flys. I'm not going to land in jungles or deserts, on carriers or anywhere very exotic. I expect that my body (and my little airplane) will be pretty safe on my adventures and I am thankful for the luxury of that. At the same time, I don't want to back away from the idea that life is interesting and exciting and ultimately good ... and that I am called towards staying engaged with the people and experiences around me. It's sometimes scary, but worth the work. I see life as where we fit ourselves for what comes next ... whatever that is.

When I first started flying I had to trust the CFI to keep me safe. He didn't look like someone I would trust, but he became someone I trusted (at least until I learned how to land myself - lol - just kidding kinda). He helped open the way for me to begin working on my trust issues ... then I scooted away from that work. Recently, in my flight training I have intentionally picked up that issue again and I find working on it painful and rewarding. I have found that the walls come down when I trust...and that is some scary stuff for me (and probably for most people too)... and that is the adventure. It's also almost a miracle for me - to try to trust - people who I can see and - God.

When you trust, you expose yourself to the opportunity to become more than you are ... you give God the chance to grow you a little.I said that ... I believe that. I am thankful to the people who have given me a safe place to work on trust.

Sunday morning - 29th anniversary. I remember that girl 29 years ago today and it makes me laugh ... what a brave naive little thing.

I opened the window near my side of the bed sometime during the night like I usually do when the weather encourages it. This morning I sat up to see a female robin perched atop the hedge. I bet she is building her nest there in the holly bush. There is another nest going in the pink rose vine on my front porch. I wonder how many nests I might pull off of the engines of airplanes this season. That little robin tilted her head when she sensed me...ah, human...and she flew away. I wouldn't think of harming her - I enjoy her presence. She is wary of me whilst she builds in the sticker bush where snakes and cats might play.