Crop Circles & Flight Lessons

7:00 a.m. the alarm clock goes off in our little house made of tires.  We squint out the window with the same question we have every morning these days:  is it a good day for flying?  This past week, the answer has usually been, “Yes!”  Finally.  We’ve had rainstorm after rainstorm like so much of the country.  

indoor garden

7:20 I am inspecting the plane.  It’s called the “pre-flight”, and it’s as important to flying as putting on glasses so you can see in the morning.  The plane I’m learning how to fly is a Cessna 172.  It holds four people and a little baggage.  Martin has taught me to examine the parts of the wings, the fuel, and a whole list of things.  The airplane manual is in my hand so I don’t miss a thing.

preflight

7:35 We are in the plane, doing the startup before we enter the runway.  I like being in the pilot’s seat; I get the comfortable headset.  It might make Martin uncomfortable, but he doesn’t show it.  He is so professional.  It really is like we’re student/instructor, not wife/husband.  If I try to crack a joke about making crop circles when we get into the sky because we’ll be flying.  In circles.  Around crops.  (Funny, no?)  Well he doesn’t laugh like usual.  I feel a little shocked, but then I remember my role.

7:40  Takeoff is relatively easy compared to the rest of our journey.  When the airplane is ready, it just picks itself up.

country farm

7:45  It’s time to practice turning.  Remember when I told you all how worried I was about motion sickness?  My ability to get sick absolutely anywhere is actually in my favor.  Who knew?  See, I am focusing on so many different things – the sky, the point I’m pivoting around, RPMs of the engine, pitch, the radio…  Sometimes my altitude gets a little off (okay – a lot off).  My stomach screams.  Then I try to correct the direction of the nose of the plane.

crop circle aerial view

7:47  I over-correct.  The plane is pitched too high.  Stomach gets mad again.  The cycle continues until the end of my lesson when we land and taxi off the runway.  That’s when Martin becomes my husband again, and he kisses my forehead.

…

At the end of the day, after I’ve studied more of my airplane textbook all evening and Martin has spent hours with other students and all sorts of other planes during the day, we go to bed.  For the first time, we dream about the exact same thing.

(Images by Making This Home)