Julie R. Neidlinger: Lone Prairie Blog

The J Letters: High flight.

written by Julie R. Neidlinger 5 comments link this post

::Back in the early days of the Lone Prairie web site, circa 1999 and 2000, I didn't have a blog. I had The J Letters, semi-weekly writing installments. Most of my current blog readers were not around then. This morning I woke up to the sound of the propeller sputtering to life, the wings resonding with a kind of metallic shudder. Dad went flying and though I don't know where to, it got me to thinking about this particular J Letter. The introductory poem is one that some might think trite and overused, but it is the best description of flight I've read.::

"...And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."*

Dear J,

Today I flew through mountains of air, spiraled upward through canyons of nothingness, glimpsed patches of earth patterned by sun through curtains of gray and white.

Today I went flying with dad. The sky was sprinkled heavily with clouds, bright bits of sunlight twisting about them. Dad wanted to take pictures of the clouds because, he said, it was pretty up there. I've flown above clouds in huge airplanes before -- catching a magnificent pink sunrise over the Atlantic, the clouds stretched out like carpet far below; it was pretty, so I thought that I would join him.

It was different in the Cessna 172.

Gradually we climbed, watching the altimeter slowly complete circle after circle, clocking off another thousand feet as we twisted around the sky above Hampden. We were aiming for a specific window in the clouds, a portal to another place where there was pure, unobstructed sun. At about 6500 feet, the wings of the plane seemed to stretch for miles, as if they were skimming the gray, the wisps of solid air sliding across the surface of the metal. It felt like the whole ceiling of the sky was resting upon the shoulders of the small airplane. I held my breath.

The edges of opening surrounded us as we crept up another 2000 feet, and then...there it was. We had broken free. The sun was bright and intense, the clouds below us billowing, broken and undulating as carpet. My breath on the window revealed the 15 degree temperature up at our altitude of 9000 feet, while the sun's intensity belied the crisp cold right outside of the small door of the airplane.

We were soaring. Through hazy patches and clearings in the clouds, I could make out the checkerboard fields and roads far beneath us, while above us was clear turquoise blue. For just a moment I had the feeling that if I were to stretch my arms out far enough, they would be the wings, and this would be my flight. It was gorgeous up there. We returned to the earth soon enough.

It has me thinking of horizons. That is what I know best - horizons. The mountains are beautiful, but they kill the endless horizon. I have heard from both relatives and exchange students and just about any other visitor not from here that the landscape is boring, that the drive across North Dakota is the worst.

They have simply not realized the horizons. It is when you look around and see more sky than earth, and wonder if, with your next breath, you could draw in the sky in its entirety. The clouds are the mountains here. They are upside down, nearly weightless, and not of the earth. Some are booming, some are hesitant. Some stay, and some go. But, no matter when they appear, they leave the horizon to those who rarely rise above it.

It is the sanctity of space that the poet was speaking of, found above, and here below. Nothing closes in and there are no walls....

*"High Flight", by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.