Prayers from the Sea

This morning as I crept out into the break of daylight, the sun shone in through a low hole in the drizzly overcast to ignite a steep rainbow in the trees and elicit a blue glow from the rainy western sky. In my morning reading I’ve been incorporating parts of the Book of Common Prayer. I use a copy I found in the basement of a used bookstore in Cambridge, where old books can be bought relatively cheaply. This one is from 1795. I wanted one that was old, but a little beat up and cheap enough I wouldn’t worry about using it casually and often. Although the strange long S (ſ) still takes ſome getting uſed to, I like the older language. So often, “updates” do damage to original intent. And it’s leather, with marbleized end-pages. Yum!

After blending a perfect cup of Mexican hot chocolate to complement the weather outside, I came across the section entitled, “Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea.” Now just to be clear, most of my life I’ve had a personal distaste for pre-written prayers, and most other things high-church as well. They always seemed to me insincere, artificial, and pompous, if not downright mechanistic, as if we needed a specific prefab “prayer to be used during one’s engine breaking down in a rural setting.” However, if one recognizes liturgical prayers merely for what they are—a well-intentioned devotional aid for true and sincere personal prayer, then they can be quite intriguing and inspiring.

In any case, I found myself taken back to the late 1700s on a large ship, with chilling salty spray and creaking, soggy wood, thousands of miles from home. A storm’s terrible wrath was mounting quickly, and a group of men huddled around someone with a small leather book who read in haste:

“Most powerful and glorious Lord God, at whose command the winds blow, and lift up the waves of the Sea, and who stillest the rage thereof; We thy creatures, but miserable sinners, do in this our great distress cry unto thee for help; Save, Lord, or else we perish. We confess, when we have been safe, and seen all things quiet about us, we have forgot thee our God, and refused to harken to the still voice of thy word, and to obey thy commandments: But now we see how terrible thou art in all thy works of wonder; the great God to be feared above all: And therefore we adore thy divine Majesty, acknowledging thy power, and imploring thy goodness. Help, Lord and save us, for thy mercies sake in Jesus Christ thy Son our Lord.”

Sitting warm and dry with only a drizzle outside did not dull the point of the passage, that we silly humans tend to suddenly cry out to God when things get really bad, and the rest of the time, we wrestle to truly comprehend his power. I’m not talking about power to punish or scare people back into submission, like an angry, insecure god. No, most of the time, most of our lives, we have things so comfortable and safe and convenient that we grapple with all sorts of other weird questions and beliefs. It’s a rare privilege when we get to experience something that shakes us to the core, and suddenly snaps life back into perspective.

I experienced this kind of thing one summer night on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake. A lightning storm blew in over the small peninsula where I lived. Reddish-purple flashes began to light up the sky all around, and thunder boomed and shook windows. I went outside to see the flashes and feel the wind. The fury grew and grew into a lightning storm like I had never experienced in my life. I lay down in the grass looking up at the sky to see as much of it at one time as I could see. The light was light a strobe—constant and overwhelming, and the thunder nearly shook the ground on which I lay. It was so big, so incomprehensibly vast and powerful compared to the scale of my own body. It was terrifying, but just terrifying enough to remind me what greatness lies beyond my own ego and tenuous life. It felt like a gift, because in that moment I could finally understand with perfect clarity all those stories I struggled to understand about people falling facedown before the presence of God as if they were dead. The feeling, the reaction, made perfect sense to me in that moment. It had nothing to do with anger. A little human has to seem angry to seem powerful. This was just sheer power, unassuming power. Even beauty, scaled to the proper magnitude, can put us back in our place and shift the reference point from which we view the world and ourselves.

In The Magician’s Nephew, C. S. Lewis imagines this kind of an encounter with beauty and the effect it would have on the common man, like Frank the Cabby:

‘Hush!’ said the Cabby. They all listened.

In the darkness something was happening at last. A voice had begun to sing. It was very far away and Digory found it hard to decide from what direction it was coming. Sometimes it seemed to come from all directions at once. Sometimes he almost thought it was coming out of the earth beneath them. Its lower notes were deep enough to be the voice of the earth herself. There were no words. There was hardly even a tune. But it was, beyond comparison, the most beautiful noise he had ever heard. It was so beautiful he could hardly bear it…

‘Gawd!’ said the Cabby. ‘Ain’t it lovely?’

Then two wonders happened at the same moment. One was that the voice was suddenly joined by other voices; more voices than you could possibly count. They were in harmony with it, but far higher up the scale: cold, tingling, silvery voices. The second wonder was that the blackness overhead, all at once, was blazing with stars. They didn’t come out gently one by one, as they do on a summer evening. One moment there had been nothing but darkness; next moment a thousand, thousand points of light leaped out – single stars, constellations, and planets, brighter and bigger than any in our world. There were no clouds. The new stars and the new voices began at exactly the same time. If you had seen and heard it, as Digory did, you would have felt quite certain that it was the stars themselves who were singing, and that it was the First Voice, the deep one, which had made them appear and made them sing.

‘Glory be!’ said the Cabby. ‘I’d ha’ been a better man all my life if I’d known there were things like this.’

I still struggle every day to find and remember those reference points of power and beauty. Fleeting experiences in my life have given me glimpses of where they lie, almost unimaginably far off in the distance, but the mere fact and assurance that they exist never ceases to comfort me. It relieves me of the burden of wrestling with my own fickle perspective that changes day to day like the weather.

Panhandle piloting: 3,000 miles in a Mooney Mite (Part 3)

After days of being grounded, I finally got back out on the runway, wound up the engine, and felt the ground fall from beneath me. The thought of a new family member waiting to meet me in San Diego made the next two days of flying more like a race than an exploration, though there was plenty more awaiting my discovery in the hundreds of miles that lay ahead.

Skirting the western edge of Denver's formidable class bravo airspace, I caught a beautiful glimpse of the rocks of the Garden of the Gods projecting out of the greenery like a giant stone wave. 

The Sangre de Cristo mountain range cut through my course from Meadow Lake to Monte Vista like a 14,000' wall in the sky. I squeaked around its point at 12,500', about as high as I could push the little Mite at that density altitude. Nudging the stick back to climb did nothing but slow me down. 

Across the valley on the other side, I could see huge, dark thunderstorms brewing to the south near the New Mexico border, combing the desert with sheets of rain. Standing in gusty wind on Monte Vista's desolate runway staring up at them put a sick and lonely feeling in my stomach. I'd hate to be weathered out again with nobody around. Thankfully they stayed off my course, and I was able to shoot straight for Animas airport near Durango, where I would spend the night. 

I happened upon another Mite in Durango, Gregg Delvin's N100JM, built in 1953--one year younger than my N4071. It had a wooden prop and a cheery checkered tail. It would have been nice to leave the two Mites together in the hangar for a few hours and let them talk. Heaven knows what stories they'd have to tell. 

Some friends of mine showed me around Durango. Had my dad not discovered Quincy in N4152 decades earlier, I very well might have grown up in Durango. And the two Mites would certainly have been friends. 

I was dropped off back at the airport at about 7:30 PM and wandered around for a while musing at an evening rainbow, then the sunset, then hundreds of rabbits skipping through the brush. 

I went to sleep on top of a big flatbed truck trailer watching a distant lightning show. The lightning soon turned to rain, and I scrambled down underneath the trailer. The wind still blew the rain in on me, so I wrapped up as well as I could in an old military poncho and covered the rest of me with my jacket. They were pretty wet and muddy in the morning, but at least I was dry. I hung them up on the Mite's prop to dry out while I stole through the darkness into the FBO to make some oatmeal.

It was my marathon day. I ate and watched the sunrise, then hopped in the cockpit and took off. There was not a cloud in the sky, at daybreak and the air was smooth as glass. It's fun to watch your gauges in smooth air and really dial in your climb rate, cruise speed, fuel mixture--even in a plane as crude as a Mite.

There was no more highway beneath me as I flew. The white desert stretched out silent and vast for hundreds of miles. Sandy river beds snaked through its rolling contours, and I flew low and marveled at the solitude.

The morning was still young when my wheels squeaked on the pavement in Gallup, New Mexico 200 miles to the southwest. In the FBO I found a large plate of doughnuts, two hot pots of coffee, and three or four old-timers telling flying stories. Boy, did that coffee hit the spot. And the apple fritter too.

That scene, to me, was the quintessence of small-town airports. The guys told me stories, and we talked planes. I loved that I could just breeze in there, enjoy a few moments with them like they were old friends, and then walk out and disappear to another part of the country, most likely never to see them again in my life. There is a kind of grace in serendipity. It doesn't merely create adventure; it makes moments completely unique and irreplicable.

Past Gallup, the desert turned from white to wild pinks and reds. That was Navajo country, but it looked like the surface of Mars. Then it climbed higher and higher into pine trees, and suddenly dropped off from 7,500 feet down to Payson in the valley floor. 

The day was heating up quickly, especially the farther south I flew. The airports were getting lower too. By the time I reached Wickenburg, AZ it felt like walking around in an oven. A tiny shack with two palm trees stood on the field like an oasis. Inside was an ice cream bin, and inside that was a mint chocolate chip fudge brownie sandwich with my name on it. Never had ice cream tasted so good. 

The nice lady who ran the place had a Great Dane named Paycheck who looked like she was much older than most Great Danes get to live. 

Blythe airport was blisteringly hot, and I had trouble starting the Mite, which usually fires right up on the first pull of the prop. My hand was sore after yanking it again and again, even gloved with the old glove my dad always kept in the pouch behind the seat for that purpose. Mites don't have starters, so you stand in front of the starboard wing, yank on the prop with your right hand, hold the airplane from taxiing away with your left thigh. Then you quickly jump up into the tiny cockpit and stomp on the brakes.

Finally, after nearly eight hours of flying time, I bounced down onto the runway at Gillespie airport near my brother JK's house in La Mesa. He came and picked me up, then the two of us went to San Diego to get my mom and sister who had flown down commercially from northern California. I was proud to have beaten them there. Seeing a baby car seat in the car made my heart leap with excitement. 

I showered before meeting the baby, and wanted to shave too, but didn't have a razor. He was so tiny, and his features so refined--almost un-babylike. I held him for a long time. Twenty-five years earlier my parents had brought my older brother back to that very room. Finally there was new life in our family. Dad never got to meet little Kennon, but he'd heard the news before he died, and he and my mom cried tears of joy in his hospital room. I was Kennon's only uncle. Dreams of adventures together soared in my mind, and I stroked his cheek, too soft to even feel with bare finger.

After several days together, it was time for me to make my way back up north to Quincy. My goal the first day was just to make it to Santa Monica. I'd been in touch with an old flame from college who lived in Malibu at the time, and I was hoping we'd get a chance to talk about the past, which had never quite made sense to me. 

The stress started when I took out the flight charts. I looked at the airspace between San Diego and LA, and my heart sank about as low as my jaw dropped. My normal sectionals weren't even detailed enough to see all the complicated clutter I was going to have to fight my way through. I had to buy a couple higher-resolution terminal charts just to do my flight planning. But I knew the experience would be good for me, a mountain pilot raised in class G.

My previous experiences that trip had taught me enough to talk to some local pilots familiar with the route. I found a banner flier in a nearby hangar who familiarized me with the VFR corridor right through the middle LAX class B. Even after I knew what I had to do, I had to sit for a long time running through it in my head again and again until I could recall it easily under pressure. Things go by so fast when you can't just pull over and look at a map, and lots of unanticipated things can go wrong, as I would soon find out.

I was taxiing before finally realizing there were no fuel pumps on the field, only trucks, so I had to shut the plane down and call for fuel service. After that I listened to ATIS and told ground service I was ready to go. They said my radio was bleeding over into all the other frequencies. That would be a major problem flying through LA, so I shut down the plane a second time and had a radio mechanic try to take a look at it. He couldn't help, but I remembered I had a spare handheld just in case of such a problem. 

It was afternoon by the time I got rolling the third time. I got a radio check, and after hanging the handheld up on the side of the cockpit behind my right shoulder I was able to transmit well enough to tell myself I could make it through LA--and sort of believe it. Because I was using a handheld with it's own power, I forgot to turn on my master electrical switch at first, so I thought I was having transponder issues too when flight following couldn't get a signal.

I sat in the run-up position with a sick feeling in my stomach, knowing that once I said "N4071 ready for takeoff" and rolled out into position there was no going back or changing my mind. It was Santa Monica through the dragon's throat or bust.

I wanted to do it, knew I should do it, and someone was waiting for me again on the other side. What wrenching feelings fighter pilots must go through sitting on the runway with their engines whining.

"Ready for takeoff."

A Southwest airliner blasted underneath me as I cruised past John Wayne. The flight controller kept telling me to get a visual on him, but he was right under my starboard wing until he was practically right underneath me. It felt like I could almost see the pilot and copilot's faces gazing up at me from their purple and red locomotive in the sky. A Cessna Citation rocketed by, and numerous other small planes buzzed around me.

Once I started to near LAX, I spotted someone headed straight at me from 12:00 at the same altitude. I banked to miss him, realizing as I did that "he" was actually a green balloon who would probably answer to the merciless FAA if he didn't end up plastered on the front of a purple and red locomotive first. Unlike the balloon, a Goodyear blimp kept to lower, safer air down below me. 

Several real airplanes did come speeding my way, especially as I got close to the class B. Flight following told me "frequency change approved" and said to squawk 1201 on the transponder for the special VFR corridor over LAX. Never having done it before, I asked if it was possible to get flight following through the corridor. "Negative," he said. "You've got to do it on your own, and you can contact So-Cal Approach when you come out the other side."

Something felt extremely unnerving about flying through the very heart of some of the world's busiest airspace on my own navigation. It felt like flying through the eye of a hurricane. An eerie calm settled, and time seemed to pass in slow motion as I communicated with other pilots suspended in the nucleus of madness. Huge airliners dove down and roared out LAX directly beneath me. I flew at 4,500 feet, and southbound traffic passed in the opposite direction a thousand feet below, like bugs amidst a swirling mass of tumbling houses and farm animals.

I contacted Approach as soon as I popped out the other side, but they just said to contact Santa Monica tower. Woe was me, because that tower controller seemed to be having the worst day of his life that day. He was telling planes to fly up to Pacific Pallisades and not come back for at least two minutes. "Cessna 1359B, you're number seven for landing!" he'd bark angrily, "I've got a ton of jets coming in here!"

I took my time dropping down to pattern altitude and timidly called my position at right downwind like he'd told me to. He said he wasn't getting a transponder signal from me, but I'd just been using it with flight following and knew for a fact that it was working. I re-cycled it anyway, but he just kept telling me to do it over and over, and then literally yelled at me over the radio. Pilots, especially young pilots, have to develop thick skin pretty quickly, but it sure would have been nice if my equipment would work like it was supposed to. As if traffic and airspace weren't enough to worry about.

He let me land, but only with a stiff reprimand to get my transponder looked at. To add insult to injury, my cell phone died after I landed, so I called my friend in Malibu from a land line. It turned out her phone had died too, but she eventually got the message.

We grabbed a bite to eat and then sat on a wall above the beach and watched the dark breakers. She asked me how I was doing regarding Dad's death, but I found myself unable to pull any words together that would make any sense. Losing a father isn't like losing a lover. Your world doesn't blaze with pain. It just changes, forever. It's an empty seat, old shirts in a closet, planes with dust on them. That silence and emptiness cools life down from the energy of youth. With no eyes of wisdom watching over your shoulder and cheering you on, every decision feels bigger, harder, less certain.

Life is full of mysteries. Nothing really happened during that visit with my friend, or afterward. We stayed friends, for which I'm thankful. But as I climbed out of Santa Monica, a poignant loneliness struck me. When was in college, dad used to plan the timing of business trips so we could fly home together to Quincy just for the weekend, especially when I was homesick. We always flew out of Santa Monica. He'd let me climb into the left seat and take the yoke, and we'd get up to cruise and listen to AM radio stations, or just talk about life and marvel at the stars above and lights below. I knew that route up California so well. This was the first time we could no longer do it together. I was by myself. 

It was a Saturday when I got back home. Three thousand miles had offered me desert sunrises, sublime thunderstorms, new friends, even a new family member. And I was a far better pilot than when I'd set out. If anything, the flying had made me miss Dad more, but that was a good thing, a healthy kind of appreciation and longing. A new generation had begun in our family, and little Kennon would know all the joys in the sky his namesake had given us. That empty place in my life would not go away, but I had been given the gift of appreciation, not taking anything for granted, and I suppose the trip taught me just how far that could take me.