solo

Realization

I was flying in Seattle with a few friends, Lars, Geir and Amy, this is Mt. Rainier, the inactive volcano. We watch it create it’s own weather. I miss flying, must get back in the air SOON!!! I’m amazed that people can think of planes, it’s an idea, then go and invent one, and then anyone with enough enthusiasm can get the resources to just go and fly. How many years have people been on the planet and only right here and right now can you decide to take off and fly and you can go for it, the wild blue yonder.

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds,–and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless falls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor eer eagle flew–
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

- John Gillespie Magee, a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War