Keep Calm and Fly On (Part 1)

The decimated crank case of the Cessna 414 aircraft that blew out on us in mid air

September 27th, 2015 (2 Sundays ago)

Our family was flying home from my Grandma's funeral 

when I heard my Dad the pilot

dryly request that his co-pilot (my brother)

"find the nearest airport."

I saw the flames spitting out of the engine

right beside my window.

All I could think was

NOT AGAIN.

This cannot be happening again.

~~~

The decimated crank case of the Piper Malibu that also blew out on us in mid air

August 4, 2003

Twelve years ago I was sitting in this very spot -

rear-facing, on the right -

when I heard my Dad utter the unthinkable:

"We're not going to make it."

Every moment and gesture of those next 10 minutes

exists in timeless auto-replay in my mind

and body.

It's a story I have told a hundred times.

It's a story that is literally branded on my forehead --

in the scars that I chose to keep that day.

I chose,

when my Dad came to my hospital bed and choked out,

"Just look what I've done to your beautiful face...
do you want me to get coverage for plastic surgery?"

"No" was my vehement answer.

I never wanted to forget.

I don't take Miracles lightly.

I remember living in an altered state of rapture
for months and months afterward.

My feet scarcely touched the ground.

All was Gratitude.

I remember wishing the scars would remain 

deep and bold forever

so that every person would wonder and ask,

so that I could tell again and again

the glorious living nightmare of falling towards death

for ten long minutes.

The soul-crackling prayer, "God, please save my family." 

The final regrets, the bracing.

The full body impact and thunderous sound of dense cedars 

snapping our aircraft.

How we all, somehow, scrambled out 

from the upside down plane,

dashed and bloody, 

dazed and alive

And how being alive smells --

of strangely hot and sweet maple syrup all mingled up 

with blood and av gas

How it tastes -- of the fragrant maple nectar oozing

down my face, embalming my eyes and lips in

a surreal, life-giving kiss

And how it sounds -- the bumblebees...

Being alive sounds like bumblebees

calmly at work in the wildflowers and the grass --

Yes, the tickle of grass is the caress of

what being alive feels like

This amazing, warm, solid grass on the ground 

that holds my whole body

like it loves me so much 

it just couldn't let me go. 

~~~

That is part of my story.

The full story of the crash is best told by the pilot himself, so stay tuned for that and more pictures at the end.

But first...


The story that I'm really here to share.

The new story...

The one that cracked open 

during our most recent emergency landing 

just 2 weeks ago.


As you can well imagine...


To be back

in the air

on a burning wing, 

and a used up prayer

was simply

  incomprehensible 

to me.


I had a husband and three children to get home to this time.

My hands and heart were trembling as I sent texts,

-I love you.

-Looks like we are doing an emergency landing.

-Trouble with one engine potentially.

-Dad wants to check it out.

-Engine on fire.  Pray!!!!!!!!!

 ~~~

Here is where 

the moral of this story becomes even more marvellous,

even more miraculous,

than surviving.


It's that moment 

in the re-living

when there is an unexpected 

revealing.

The moment of revelation that comes

when you revisit your old places 

like a curious tourist

and see something

from a new angle.

Wow Ben, you really do look like a tourist!  That is my brother Ben the day after the crash

What I have extracted

from the wreckage,

and transacted

over time

is

a certain 
secret 
something

so powerful

that you are going to have to wait 
until tomorrow to hear all about it.

Alright, I will tell you a tiny bit

before I go off to bed.

(It is almost 3:00 a.m. you know!)

~~~

You know that little Black Box

that contains the mysteries of flight?

I FOUND IT.

And there is so much inside it that I have had to split it into

a 3 part blog.


This is what I found in the Black Box 

two weeks ago today:

The power to keep calm and fly on.  

 The faith to be prudently fearless.

The courage to get back in the sky.
  

and the resilience of spirit 

to lead an unshakeable life.

Where did I find all this treasure?

Smack dab in the cockpit

where it's been all along. 

In my Dad.

Last Child in the Woods

I often find myself parked on the side of the road 

in a moment of decision.

Go clean the house

OR

Magic...

Wonder...

Golden moments with my boy.

It isn't always easy, 

choosing to be the last child in the woods,

but today it was...perfect.

It's always a major expedition

going down to the river valley floor 

with a 3 year old.

You can't have a timeline.

They do not keep record of the fact that

the farther they go 

the farther they will have to return, 

uphill.

Just the sidewalk to the field is a 10 minute excursion,

then the field to the forest edge will be another 20

because there are bottle caps to collect,

then the forest edge itself will be half an hour 

of helicoptering maple seeds and picking berries.

Interject another 10 minutes because a tractor 

is moving dirt around 

(and it simply must be supervised 

by three year old eyes)

and at last you can begin the descent.

A little object lesson arises on the hill:

There is a lovely yellow pencil hiding in the leaves.

Which quickly becomes a pencil in the hand -

 - in the hand of the boy running down the root-clad hill.

"Oh, I better take that...

if you trip and fall you will poke your eye out!"

or

"Davis, look at all these amazing roots you are going to need two hands to grab onto!"

I tried both :) 

Amazingly, his grip tightened 

with the first phrase

and loosened when his gaze 

was directed elsewhere.

The right phrase will guide the gaze.

As I said, a little object lesson,

 for me!

And so, do I say to myself,

"Naggedy nag, what's that thing 

you are holding on to so tightly?"

Or 

do I just lift my gaze?

Deep breathe, loosen the fingers, 

turn off the car,

and go to the wood.....

to the wide open sun drizzled lonely old wood.

Where I,

and my scallywag son

can play 

as one child...

How to be Sad

I started writing something last May, when I lost that other baby.  I called it 'How to be Sad.'

I was sad and getting tired of being sad so I was trying to move it along by 'studying' my sadness.  

It worked almost too well.  

Pretty soon I was my normal happy self again and it no longer seemed relevant to publish. 

So I left my theories of Sad germinating on a back shelf in my brain.

And I didn't go back to water or check on them until today when I noticed a big leafy sprout popping out of my head.

like 

an aha! 

lightbulb 

gently 

bobb

ing 

on

 a 

stem

It was a full circle moment as I realized my self-therapy last May was not an isolated cure or a one off.  

My little theory had healed me

                            in progressive

                                            and permanent ways.

Maybe even cracked open a different seed: 

How to be Happy!

~~~

Let's look at what I wrote 3 months ago, and then I will share my sprig of epiphany with you :)

~~~

  How to be Sad

I don't have much patience for my daughter's perpetually half empty glass, draining like a sieve all over the floor.  

I have been telling my 9 year old melancholic for years that she can just (please) choose to be happy (already!)...

But I'm beginning to wonder if that is actually true.

Now that I am feeling Sad beyond my control...  

Heart flatlined.  Thoughts threadbare.  Kettle of my passion burnt dry.

Can we always choose?

I told the Safeway cashier last week when he asked how I was: 

"I'm happy and sad and all over the place."  

(with a really dramatic sigh, emphasis on the sad)

The young bearded fellow cutely refused to let my sadness through his checkout line, and we laughed about how I would have to leave it in the store then.  

Wouldn't that be something useful -- a customs checkpoint where unwanted emotional 'baggage' can't get through?

Then there's the advice of my yoga teacher, Anna.  Usually when I show up for class we giggle and beam at each other, fairy step a little, giggle some more, and wordlessly glow for a minute or two.

But since I lost this baby I haven't been fairy stepping much.  

The way I described it to Anna last month is still how I feel: like I've lost my best friend -- my joyful me.  I miss myself.  

I want my Self to come out and play.  But she's not there.

"Don't make her come out yet," whispers Anna, "you go to her, where she is...."

Well...

Not so keen on going there, 

but I do take a quick walk down the dark cellar steps now and then, when I think of Anna's words.  

"Knock, knock, knock....hello in there.....sad little Gigi...hello?  hello?"  

But the silence is unpleasant and very shortly I reply, "I guess I'll be going now."

The dull pain angers me.  I feel duped by the switcheroo hormones of being pregnant then not.  Really, it's my body's sadness, not mine.  Not even fair that I have to feel it.

I grow tired of waiting for this post-partum cocktail to burn off.

I want to shout at the little girl inside, 

"For God's sake kid, 

I AM HAPPY. 

Would you quit your moping?  

Just STOP!!!"

Oh. 

Does that ever sound familiar....  

How many hundreds of times have I ragged at my daughter to "just (please) choose to be happy (already!)..."

As if she could just run her heart through customs, pull out her official "DENIED!" stamp and, with the authority vested in her Higher Self, simply reject the melancholy.

Isn't it interesting.

I don't like being with my sad daughter.  

And I don't like being with my sad self.

So I have been developing a theory.

I call it my 'Pain Finds its Friends' Theory.

And it goes like this:  

Every single pain in the jukebox has its own familiar tune and sticky chorus.  If you're singing "woe is me, nobody likes me," you get a thousand opportunities to dance that one out.  If you've just lost a baby in the womb the song could be different for everyone, but mine is "oww, I'm not getting what I want."  And the B-side is "ohhh, I'm afraid of losing the ones I love."

It's fascinating: these songs are dialling up everywhere, in different ways.  

So I'm listening more carefully...

I'm going to be real vulnerable with you about the LP on my table right now, so you can help me test my theory...

"Ohhh, I'm afraid of losing the ones I love"  

This is how the piercing B-side spins me down:

Right as I was going through this miscarriage Tom became ill. 

His guts were aching in a strange way.  

He was lying in bed all day.  

He was completely unavailable.  

He seemed so OLD.

(fair enough, he is turning 60 in a couple months,

but he never ever seems it) 

Well, the worst kind of song started started playing.  

At the very same time as real loss was happening in my womb, fear of losing Tom was echoing the beat, etching smaller and smaller circles around my heart. 

Real pain accompanied by theme song pain.  

And when it wasn't that song, it was the flip-side:  

"Oww, I'm not getting what I want"

Over the following weeks of post-partum I had this obsessive urge to move to a new neighbourhood: Ottewell of course.  

(Ever get those late-night MLS attacks where you click endlessly on the impossible, like a sadistic stalker?) 

It was out of the question, not even close, not happening whatsoever.  But I kept pining for it and chasing it anyway, as if stumbling on the perfect listing at 3:00 a.m. would make it mine.

And the irritating lyrics played on..."You can't always get what you want" 

Well, at the same time I was also feeling a pull towards teaching again, and I carved out a beautiful career plan that was also quickly abolished.  Fine, I get it: "I'm not getting what I want."  

I don't get the baby, don't get the house, don't get the job.  

No wonder I'm sad!

In big and little ways, I got to feel the beat of that song every day.

Nothing is isolated.  There is no quarantine on emotions.  If the doctor asks, "Where does it hurt?" you may as well say, "here in my 'want-it-can't-have-it' plexus."

And that's the gist of my theory:

Pain finds its friends; 

      Sadness amplifies itself, 

                  Real pain seeks its familiar echo 
                                      in memories of older pain,

                                                  And...

                                  the heart holds just a few tunes.

(more like an EP or a hit single than an IPOD playlist)

Why does life play out in themes - usually just a few at a time - over and over?  

Because we are meant to hear.

These songs are meant to be sticky, get in your head, catch your attention.

The heart never stops singing 

but it can get stuck 

where there is a scratch. 

  

~~~

So, back to the present moment ~ it's midnight, the 1st of September ~ and I am re-reading this little article of mine.

Here is what I find stupendous about it all...

Something happened inside of me 3 months ago when I recognized the songs playing in the background.

I simply rose up out of the stuck groove.  I really did.  I said 'enough of this,' and lifted the needle.

I chose not to be sad.

But first I had to hear it...

             then I had to challenge it.

THAT IS NOT MY THEME SONG!!

It was a crappy record.  It belonged in a garage sale, or broken up into tacky retro wall art.

OK, one more...  

Impressive!

That bout of sadness cleared me up on so many levels.

So much so that when I went through another miscarriage just last week I had my half day of tears and then...

only joy.

The 'pain of loss' 

went looking for some friends 

inside of me,

and didn't find any.

Kind of cool, eh? 

Maybe it's a real key....How to be Happy!

Let me know if it works for you too!  

p.s. I am also getting better with my childrens' irritating, scratchy parts, their dark sides, and their repetitive stuck grooves.  

And that's a whole other blog...