As I write this, the wind is blowing at least fifteen knots, gusting higher, under a dark gray overcast. It rained early this morning, a hard soaker, which has now subsided to drizzle with occasional snowflakes. The weather pros say it's going to snow here tonight.
I am not an innocent observer of the weather. I don't make pointless meteorological comments in conversation with casual acquaintances. I look at the sky often, with a great deal of interest.
I own two houses in widely separate places, and I chose both partly because they are sited in such a way that I can get a good view of the sky, almost from any window. At my house in Boulder, Colorado, I can look at the clouds building over the Continental Divide, watch the storms drifting down the canyons, see fog forming in the Boulder valley, observe the wind action on the surface of two reservoirs, see how the winds aloft occasionally sculpt the cirrus clouds into lenses. From my house I can see hot-air balloons lift off at dawn on calm mornings, watch how they drift as they gain altitude, see hawks circling when thermals develop, watch the sailplanes over the foothills.... These things are important to me, because I fly.
Most people take almost no notice of the ebb and flow of the sky. If it rains, they turn on the wipers; if it snows, they shovel. Yet they never pause to watch a cumulus cloud build into a thunderhead, don't watch the anvil develop, the swirling motion of the leading-edge roll cloud, don't watch the rain columns as they march across the earth, bestowing their priceless gift, don't study the angle and direction and size of snowflakes, don't run outside in shirtsleeves just to feel the bite of the wind and gauge its temperature and moisture content.
The sky affects my mood, my attitude, the very pace of my life. On rainy, overcast winter days, like today, I am ready to think about my stories, ready to write. The computer hums and the cursor dances along between my occasional pauses to look at the sky. Yet on warm, clear days....
On warm, sunny days, when the wind is not bending the tree branches and grounding the birds, I can't write. My stories seem long ago and far away, my computer has all the appeal of a medical instrument designed for a clinical examination of a private part.
On warm, sunny, balmy days the sky calls to me.
On those delicious days I need an airplane and I need one bad. Any airplane. Anything with an engine and an airworthiness certificate. I want to hear the engine sing, feel the controls in my hand, see the world from a different perspective. I want to rejoice when the ruler of the universe gives us a clear, perfect day to savor and revel in. I want to fly.
A perfect day demands my time and attention. The fate of the world and the people in it can be left to others to fret. The news — accidents, disasters, crimes, atrocities, convictions and acquittals, political shenanigans, and political wind — can finally be given the attention it deserves, which is none, because truly there is nothing on this earth I can do about any of it. Bill Clinton wants to sit in Washington, D.C., sweating that crap, so I let him. The stuff I normally deal with — bank balances, bills, deadlines, taxes, the honey-do list — can be postponed. Sooner or later, a rainy day will come. Until then, I need to live in this sunlit day, become a part of it and make it a part of me. I need to fly.
I need to get out there right in the middle of it. I want to inhale it, savor it, soak up every minute. Perfect days are too few and far between. Life is too short; it rushes on at a relentless, merciless pace. Too soon, ahh...too soon it will be all over. Eternal winter will come for me, as it does for everyone. Too soon, much too soon. So I fly.
The sober types who don't fly shake their heads sadly and offer advice. "Better put your excess dollars in the stock market," they say with a frown, "or government bonds. Maybe tax-free municipals. By the way, I should give you the name of my accountant." They never bother to state the other half of their advice: Pull the curtains and count your stock certificates by the light of the television set.
These sober people act as though I were spending the Rockefeller fortune on flying, and I'm not. In fact, flying is so inexpensive compared to the rewards I receive from it that I can never fathom why more people don't do it. If they did, they would look out the window more often.
If everyone were like me, airports would be beehives of activity in the gray moments before a cloudless dawn as everyone tried to get airborne in time to see the sun peep over the eastern horizon and the last tendrils of ground fog burn away. On gorgeous days the sky would fill with airplanes buzzing aimlessly, doing erratic pirouettes and sloppy, pear- shaped loops just to make the earth and sky change places. In the evening, airplanes would rise like flocks of geese as their crazy owners climbed high to see the sunset. If everyone were like me....
Alas, those warm, delicious days are just memories now. Winter has again imprisoned the land, and the sky is opaque, dirty-white, and cold. The pale sun up there above it all is also cold. Wind drives cold rain, sleet, occasionally snow. On those days when the weak sun shines, it merely makes mud, so it doesn't tempt me. Well, not very much.
I watch the sky anyway. Sooner or later, spring will come, the sun will once again warm my face, the wind will become a zephyr that caresses my cheek and makes me feel very much alive. And the sky will again call to me, beckon me into its arms.
In the evening, after I fly I will sit on my porch, listening to the crickets, vastly content. Snuggled in bed, I will remember the flight, how it was, how the airplane felt, how the sky looked. And I will go to sleep with high hopes for the morning.
That is how it will be, when the winter is finally over. I know these things, but the waiting is hard.
Stephen Coonts, AOPA 1056593, owns a Cessna 421B, a 1942 Stearman, and a Breezy. A former naval aviator and attorney, he is the author of Flight of the Intruder, Final Flight, The Minotaur, Under Siege, The Cannibal Queen, and The Red Horseman.
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