Lights, Camera, Action

I remember that day.  You know the day where you finally catch a glimpse of that person you always wanted to be when you grew up?  In Gloria Steinem’s book: “Revolution from Within” she describes an exercise where she had visualized her future self – her “optimal self”.   She asked the questions: “What does she look like?”  “How does she carry herself?” “How does she feel?”  As I read the passage I imagined an older version of myself walking down the street in front of the office I worked in at the time.  She felt wise, strong, and caring.  She held clarity that I couldn’t relate to at that time.  She was so completely present that it startled me.  More startling, however, was that she was wearing red boots.  I call her the “Red Boot Lady”.

I read that book when I was 20.  I have been waiting for her to show up ever since.

Flash forward 20 plus (I’m not going to commit here) years, now I see that the Red Boot Lady is fully empowered in her life.  When I tune into her these days she’s a little bit different than I had imagined when I was 20.  She can play with the boys and the girls.  Her family is content.  Her relationships are authentic.  She laughs a lot and has a nice quiet calm about her.  She is my “go-to” place.  When I settle into her body everything seems so clear.  There is such confidence behind that smile that I am always reassured.  I usually imagine her calm presence as she is walking to her plane or her confidence while flying it.

I don’t get to fly as much as I would like to.  My days are long and fast.  I’m always “on the fly”.  It has taken me forever to attain my private pilot’s license.  On that day, I had just started accumulating some of the required solo hours.  Until that day, my instructor, Dave, had been coming up with me to fly a couple of circuits, then we would come back into the Flying Club and I would go back up and do more circuits on my own.

But on that day Dave took my training wheels off all the way.

When he suggested that I go out entirely on my own I tried to bat the baby blues to get him to come out for a quick spin, just to make sure I was okay, but he would have none of it.  I was on my own - from start to finish.  A-LONE.   All by myself - except for God, the angels, guides, dead relatives, ancestors, forgotten fighter pilots, Amelia Earhart, and anyone else I could think of to call in.  I secretly sent a friend a text from the bathroom to pray for me.  “Please call in the big guns.”

I nervously got in the plane and pep-talked myself: “Okay, you’ve done this a hundred times… well, maybe twenty, twenty-five times.  You’ll be fine.  This is like driving a car.”

FYI, it’s nothing like driving a car.  When a car has engine failure it doesn’t fall from the sky.  Thank God there’s a checklist.  As I went through my checklist I prayed. I prayed for a sign – a Big One.

As I prayed, I looked at the Blackberry that I had seat belted in next to me (my “timepiece”) and whispered: “Okay Boys (that’s what I call my people on the Other Side), I need a sign here so if we are good-to-go when I look back down at my Blackberry, I’m looking for the little red light.”

I looked down and saw: nothing.  I waited for that little red light.  I genie-blinked and wiggled my nose like Samantha but still nothing.  I looked back up and instead Dave was standing at my window in his red jacket:  “Ramona, the aircraft is still tied down.”  Small detail.

“You should add that to your checklist”, I heard him say as he walked away.  At least I got my sign.

After ensuring the Cessna was no longer earthbound by tie-downs, I was bravely on my way.  Without Dave sitting next to me I had all of the privileges of a full-fledged pilot.  In aviation “privilege” really means: “responsibility and liability”.  If I completely screwed up I had no back up – someone swiped my security blanket.

But on that day, the Red Boot Lady was flying that plane.  She was all Lights, Camera, Action.  I love her ease in an airplane.  If she notices the turbulence it’s something she thinks about after she has already ridden it.  She calls her plane “Sugar” because she loves it and it does exactly what she wants it to.  She doesn’t swear every time she lands like I do.  If she over flares, she just adds a little power and glides onto the mains like she meant to do that.  She can park right on the line.  On that day, on her way back into the Club another member was heading out and asked what it was like out there. “Beautiful”, she answered.

I would write about the eagle and the rainbow but I am pretty sure no one would believe me, although there may have also been an eagle and a rainbow involved on that day, and it was still my real life.

The Red Boot Lady thanked Dave for the terrific day and as she unlocked her car door she caught a glimpse of herself in the window.  There we stood.  I looked at her and she looked back at me with a smile and a warm afterglow.  It was then that I realized that she’s been here all along.