I was 26 years old in June of 2010 - hardly a long life but certainly a rich one. I had been fortunate to have travelled much of my country and the world, gained an education, something of a job and membership in the relatively small but tightly bound group of aviators.
As I said, it's quiet out here. The only sound is of water lapping against fibreglass. And my breathing - somewhat labored but calming as the pounding of my heart, reverberating like a drum inside my head, subsides. The air is clean and fresh with an undertone of a salty waft of an ocean breeze. The Pacific is a deep grey, nearly black and almost oil-like as it rolls by in gentle undulations between ridge and valley. The flat, shimmering disk of the sun has only just dipped its feet in the distant western horizon.
On this vast face, we bob like two corks - perhaps a half mile from a shore that slides in and out of sight. I'm lying prone on my board, hands tightly clasping the edges while my feet hang off the edge, occasionally dipping into the waves as they work their way back in with the tide. I have my left ear against the board listening to the sound of the sea slowly drowning out my heartbeat. My friend, who I haven't seen in a few years now, is perhaps another fifteen feet out to sea, sitting astride her board and knee deep in the Pacific. Eyes closed, face upturned - she's the only break on a wide horizon tinged in red and violet. She came out here after university to find...something. I'm not sure what but I think I may know why. We haven't really talked about it and I have no intention of broaching the matter. They are her secrets and hers alone. She does seem happier and that's more than enough.
We could not be more different, more divided. I marvel at her ease and quiet confidence - straddling the ocean in the same manner as one holds dominion over a backyard lawn chair. I'm clinging to my postage stamp of salvation and wondering how deep the water is and why on earth I paddled out beyond the break.
Dominion. Yes, it wasn't always this way. It couldn't have been. This mastery came only with time and practice and repeated defeat. Where I am now, she once was. I begin to understand the responsibility she assumed by bringing me out here. I now accept why we (rather she) spent hours studying the waves, changing beaches, waiting for the proper conditions. I accept that having ventured into the maw of the Pacific, we would inevitably be spit back out.
"Okay," she says, eyes still closed as if in communion with the sea. "Let's go back."
I swing my board around, dip my arms and feet into the cool water and, instantly invigorated and emboldened, start paddling for shore. As my speed builds, the gentle waves grow. At a certain and very specific point, I feel the ocean swell under my board and drive me forward with more force than I can muster on my own.
"Get up!" I hear her distant cry through the roar and hiss of wave and spray.
I'd practiced getting up on the board on dry land and in the surf without success. Even before paddling out, we vowed that this will be my last attempt.
A frantic second later, I'm standing on the board. A quick glance at my feet confirms it. I've no clue as to how this happened. I am riding the ocean, gliding along on the crest of a small wave - just one heartbeat of this rolling mass. The euphoria almost instantly devolves into fear and the bottom falls out. The board goes one way, my feet the other. The horizon revolves smoothly before disappearing in a rush of white mist.
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| Surfing Tofino in 2010. (Author's collection) |
Nearly six years later, I draw my collar up against the blast of a chilly spring wind. I am far from the warmth of the Pacific. Rather than lying on a board, I am sitting on an old park bench in the shadow of the portable building that has served as the flying club's temporary home for nearly a decade. Both have been painted an alarming combination of sky and royal blue. The paint, hastily applied, is peeling and chipping. I brush away a few specks with a gloved hand.
Rather than studying the waves, I am gazing intently at the windsock mounted above the fuel pumps. It is my visual indicator of the unseen waves of air that roll across the surface of the old air base at Rockcliffe. It points stiffly east, indicating a wind of some twenty knots out of the west. Every few seconds, it flicks, spins or wags as the waves change direction and speed. Every few seconds, I change my mind between staying on the ground or launching into the blue.
The wind is straight down the pipe and no stronger than the day I first brought the Smith here. But that had been nearly ten months ago and I hadn't flown the airplane, or any airplane for that matter, in the last five months. The airplane was made ready yesterday and my feet had betrayed no weakness during a half dozen taxi runs. And yet...
"Just relax and fly it."
The words belong to Geoff, our ramp manager. Clad in blue coveralls and topped by a mane of grey-blonde hair, he towers above me - a giant silhouetted by the early afternoon sun.
I nod resolutely and begin the walk to the hangar. Moments later, I am listening to the sound of the wheels roll along the same tarmac that once hosted AVRO 504Ks, North American Harvards, Hawker Hurricanes and Avro Lancasters. I drum my fingers on the taut fabric of the wings, strum the flying wires and tail braces, run my hands along the leading edges, cowls and prop. Dropping into the cockpit, I'm welcomed by familiarity - the sights, smells and feelings of a well-worn armchair.
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| DSA comes out of hibernation. (Author's Collection) |
Belts on and locked. Helmet on and goggles up. Fuel on. Throttle set. Mixture to full rich. Three shots of prime. Master switch on. Ignition switches on. Brakes set.
I whisper the words as my eyes follow my hands around the cockpit.
Right hand on the stick, left hand resting gently on the throttle, head up and neck craned left - straining to look around the long nose.
"Clear!"
My pinky finger hits the starter button. The propeller cracks, swings around once, twice. There's a cough from the Lycoming and then it roars to life. The Smith quivers and trembles in response, in excitement.
A few minutes later, we're climbing into a clear blue sky with only a scattering of wispy clouds. The take-off roll, thanks to the wind, was quite short. My blood is still pumping but I'm happy with how my body performed. My mind too, sharpened by that unique mingling of fear and anticipation, did an admirable job. Having reached a thousand feet, I turn slightly to the right to cross the river at Gatineau's Jacques Cartier Park. I'll permit myself to relax a little now, rolling my shoulders back and letting my body sink into my seat.
We race across downtown Gatineau. The casino, with its lake and hundred foot water spout, slides by the left wings as the hydro electric dams at Chelsea float by on the right. The Gatineau Hills slope up from left to right just beyond the nose. Jostled by periodic bursts of wind, I guide the little biplane towards the lowest point of the hills. My eyes dart from the engine gauges to the few fields and off-airport landing sites available on this brief run. I have them memorized. Should the engine quit now, I will go here. Should it quit then, I will go there.
The Lycoming, offended, purrs steadily on.
At last, we bound across the pass and I guide the airplane into a gentle right turn to the north-west - right wings over the sheer drop of the Gatineau Hills escarpment, left wings framed by an expanse of patchwork fields and the river beyond.
It's a Tuesday afternoon. The radio is silent and the skies are clear. From my meager height, I can still see the eastern reaches of Algonquin Park. I will never tire of this view.
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| Flying near Luskville on the first flight of the season. Note the ice still clinging to the shores of the Ottawa River. (Author's Collection) |
Tuesday, April 14th, 2015 marked the beginning of our second season. It had been an eventful offseason. After being laid off in late November and taking a month off to reset, I launched myself into finding new work. This search, in and of itself, was a full-time job. The process was at times both exciting and discouraging and, while I did enjoy a few call backs and interviews, I had yet to land work. So, as the flying season opened in April, I offered my full-time services to the Rockcliffe Flying Club.
Working as a full-time pilot had never been on my radar. While the pay was decent due to my specialized skill set, there just weren't enough hours in the day to safely make a go of it. I always considered it a great way to keep my hand in some interesting flying while avoiding the high cost of rental. Later, after acquiring the Smith, it became a convenient way to run the biplane without leaning too heavily on the fruits of my day job.
I thought the flying club job would keep me from slowly going batty. It would give me a sense of professional purpose and normalcy, I argued. It would also put some money in the bank. This was important given we had welcomed a baby boy at the end of January - the only bright spot in an otherwise cruelly bleak winter.
The 5 months preceding this flight had subjected me, and at times my family, to a wide and wildly opposed range of thoughts and emotions. In the same minute, I would feel the hot pang of anger bordering on white rage, followed by a desperate sadness and powerful feelings of eroded self worth. I busied myself by searching for work, writing applications and going to the gym - usually twice but occasionally as many as 3 times a day.
When I was a little kid, I remember saying something along the lines of "I hate this..." and my father telling me, quite solemnly, that "hate is a very strong word and while you may not like something or someone, you might even strongly dislike them, hate is never something you should feel."
Sorry, Dad. I felt hate. I hated in bountiful, unhealthy amounts. I wished terrible things onto unsavoury people. I knew it was wrong, and yet...
Sorry, Dad.
But I tried to fight against it. Every time my mind's eye saw a face I wanted to drive my fist through, I drove to the gym and mindlessly pushed weights until my muscles screamed. Every time my mind wandered to some aspect of that bone-chilling November morning, I chained myself to my laptop until I'd written three job applications.
Every time I went down the proverbial rabbit hole, I fought like hell to get out. And always, once a day, I caught myself sighing, "God, I am so tired."
And then, on one of those bitterly cold January mornings when the whole of your world waits in longing anticipation of that first ray of sunlight and when the snow, carried on a stiff wind, swirled outside and collected on window ledges, things...everything changed.
I trudged down a hospital corridor in suede mukluks, grey jogging pants and a t-shirt I'd been wearing for 24 hours. My wife, being wheeled in a bed by a portly nurse, was outdistancing me and eventually vanished around a corner. The hospital, clad in uniform taupe punctuated by the pastels of nurses' scrubs, hummed around me. And I was lost in the presence of the little boy I cradled in the crook of my left arm like a football.
I asked for forgiveness for all the wrongs I'd committed - known and unknown. I forgave any wrongs - known or unknown - that had been done to me.
Sorry, Dad - that you can't be here to meet your grandson. It had been my fear since I'd heard about the second cancer diagnosis. And now, here it was.
The Smith purrs on faithfully, reassuringly - each cylinder following the one preceding it with unerring regularity. Intake, compression, power, exhaust - in that order and a million times over without as much as a hiccup. I've put the escarpment on the left wings and pointed the nose south-east towards the gap we'll run on our way home to Rockcliffe. The wind is shepherding us along at a fairly fast clip and while the airspeed indicator assigns one number to our velocity, the hum and tremble of the flying wires betray a much greater one. We'll be landing at our home in a matter of minutes and, suddenly, this flight feels too short for the time I've waited.
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| Short final approach to runway 27 at Rockcliffe. We got some good chop off those trees. (Author's collection) |
The approach and landing are much like our first successful one at Peterborough and I recall it, even seconds after, only in single-sense snapshots. The Smith and I play that old game where one attempts to outwait the other, endeavouring to keep the little ship balanced mere inches above the pavement until the wings surrender their lift. I'm amazed at how my hands and feet operate a shade faster than my mind. There's a squeak as the main wheels touch and a little swing as the tailwheel grabs the pavement. My feet contribute an ever-so-subtle jockeying of the pedals and the bipe rolls out straight and true.
The tension melts from my back and shoulders and a smile creases my face. I pull my goggles up and breathe a sigh of equal parts relief and restoration.
Now, firmly anchored to the earth again, I feel light. The seconds and minutes passed without consequence while we were aloft and while nothing had really changed, the mantle of my worries and responsibilities is not quite as heavy as it was barely an hour ago.
This is the afterglow and I will wear it a little while longer still.
