Football is life
Flying is more than a J-O-B
When you are working from home because of COVID-19 office closures, the line can easily get blurred. There’s no way to leave work behind if your laptop is sitting right there on the kitchen table and your boss wants to Zoom with the whole team at 6 p.m. on a Tuesday. It’s easy to see why that would be a tough adjustment. But for those of us who work in the aviation industry, work and life outside of work have always been a little bit blended. Like many pilots, I fly for fun and I also fly for hire. Most working pilots I’ve encountered feel supremely lucky to be doing something they love every day. Don’t get me wrong, all jobs feel like work sometimes, but for those of us who get to “work” at the airport, I’m hoping those J-O-B moments are few and far between.
The pilots I know tend to constantly have aviation on the brain. Not right up in the forefront mind you, more like the screensaver picture on your computer of a sandy beach and blue ocean, just something pleasant in the background of our regular lives. When we go to parties and other pilots are there, I always catch an eyeroll from my nonpilot husband when the conversation turns to aviation. But we can’t help it. We all have this wonderful thing in common that we’re passionate about. It happens at home too. A pilot friend sent a beautiful Christmas family picture of all the kids and the dog. It said, “Merry Christmas from Lance, Jean, the kids, and Bernoulli.” My 7-year-old son, Matthew, wanted to know why someone would give their dog such a strange name. I smirked at my husband before launching into what I hoped was an age-appropriate discussion of aerodynamics. When I finished explaining high and low pressure and the miracle of how a wing gets lift, Matt just shook his head. “No way, Mom. I don’t know any dogs who could have come up with all of that.” So, perhaps he misunderstood some part of the discussion, but I will not be deterred.
Aviation is life. Or life is aviation. I’m not sure which. The two often bleed into each other.Recently, I caught my young son staring up at the ceiling fan deep in thought. Without warning, he threw his stuffed toy at that spinning fan and watched in wonder as Spider-Man bounced off and hit the wall 90 degrees ahead of where he had originally been thrown. Now, I know most mothers would reprimand a child for this type of behavior, but…well, you know what happened instead. What a perfect time to discuss precession and how we use those principles in aircraft! Work/home-life separation is a myth, I say. We humans don’t have compartmentalized brains that can put different parts of our lives into neat little boxes. We draw lines from one thing to another, making connections as we go.
I really do try to keep things separate, but when I get together with my pilot brother for a meal, the conversation often drifts toward our favorite subject. “No more airplane talk at the table,” my mother used to complain, as if we were discussing graphic violence or making potty jokes. Now, though, Mom is taking flying lessons, so we all happily talk flying until we get our fill.
Because the best TV shows remind us of something in ourselves, I’ll wrap this up with a Ted Lasso reference. One of my favorite characters is Dani Rojas, whose signature saying is “Football is life!” He’s a professional soccer player who eats, sleeps, and breathes the game. Work and passion are all intertwined, and he is happy and laughing in most of the scenes.
Aviation is life. Or life is aviation. I’m not sure which. The two often bleed into each other. I’m a pilot. It doesn’t define me, but it’s a big part of who I am, right along with being a mother, and a wife, and a person of faith. When I’m working with my daughter on pitching a softball and she’s having trouble with her mechanics, my mind goes to flight instruction and how many pilots learn to land by first focusing on each skill individually. Master airspeed first. Then work in altitude control. So, I tell my daughter to focus only on her release, then once she’s mastered that, we can work in arm speed, and glove control. Is it shameful that airplanes find their way into even precious mother-daughter time? I don’t think so. They say the secret to happiness is to love what you do and do what you love. Who needs a work-life balance when you’ve got all that?
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