Going Out On A Wing

I've been thinking about risk taking.

What is an acceptable level of risk? How do you decide?  These are questions we ask in the healthcare field every day.  They come up in all areas of life, however.

When I was a kid, I was a tomboy.  My options were limited, but I did what I could: tree climbing, bike riding, water-skiing.  In high school, I once climbed to the top of a water tower.  It was foolish, probably illegal if not actually dangerous, but thrilling just the same.  As a young mom, my risk taking aptitude went way down. The idea of doing anything that might leave my young children motherless was painful to me. As they have grown, my natural tendency to be a bit of a risk taker has returned.

I enjoy things like roller coasters and white water rafting.  I love flying small planes, scuba dive whenever I get the chance and just recently took up rock climbing.  On my bucket list: skydiving.

But that guy, Felix Baumgartner, who took a free dive from space last year?  The fellow (Nik Wallenda) tight-rope walking across the Grand Canyon?  The young kid, Alex Honnold, who free solo climbs (that's without ropes, my friends) sheer mountain faces? And the famed wing walker, Jane Wicker, who died just yesterday in a fiery crash during an air-show, these folks have a risk taking appetite that perplexes me.

I revisit these thoughts occasionally and yesterday was such an occasion.

Flying into Dayton to meet Rob for a date night:  This was mid-trip for him; he was coming from Newark and had a long layover.  I was off for the weekend.  The planets were in alignment.  And the Pass-Travel Gods were with me.  I had easily gotten seats onto both flights and we were circling Dayton after a short, uneventful flight from Chicago.  Lost in my novel, I hadn't really noticed that we were in a holding pattern until our captain's voice suddenly filled the cabin.   In somber tones, filled with the characteristic pauses and long vowels of a pilot, he shared with us the news that "an incident" had occurred at the Dayton airshow.  The airport was closed.  We were running low on fuel and would have to reroute to Columbus.

I have never been more proud of my fellow travelers.  Generally news of any delay, much less, being rerouted to a different airport, would have been the source of much grumbling.  But that was not the case.  There were questions called up to the flight attendant regarding logistics, but overall the mood was reverent and calm. "An incident".  We had no other news at that time, but we all expected it would be bad.  Once we had landed in Columbus and our captain had more news to share, we'd all fired up our phones to get the news ourselves.

I had a text waiting for me from Rob whose flight from Newark to Dayton had been delayed for the same reason.  "Jane Wicker crashed. F_ _ _".  He'd seen Jane perform, had met and talked with her before. His reaction was not dissimilar from the crew flying my plane.  Sadness and dismay.  A sobering reminder that flying is not risk free.

So, these were the conversations that dominated our time together.  Why? Why do people pursue these extreme sports where one small error means certain death?  Pilots of commercial jets are not risk-averse individuals generally, but they appreciate the value of back-up systems, of having a second set of eyes in the cockpit.  When you are flying a stunt plane upside down, at low-altitude, one miscalculation, one wrong gust of wind and nobody walks away from it. There's no margin of error. The same can be said of the free solo rock climbing.  No ropes. No harness.  2,000 feet up on sheer rock.  I just don't get it.

I love the thrill of adventure sports, but I would never climb without a harness.  There must be something different about someone who can.  Someone who undertakes the extreme, unprotected sport.  Maybe these are the explorers and adventurers of the modern day.  Maybe they are all similar to Alex Honnolt who speaks of the sense of peace that overcomes him when he's on the rock.  But, I can't help but wonder if we are not culpable in some way, just by watching.  Are we no better than those who filled the coliseum to watch the bloodsports?

Maybe it's too many years of working in healthcare, where risk mitigation is always forefront in our minds.  Some things, like healthcare, flying, scuba diving and rock climbing have inherent risk.  If we are going to practice those things, we use our protocols, our checklists, our buddy system, our harness and ropes.  We expect good outcomes because we practice safely.  We don't go out on a wing and just hope that everything works out.

Today, the sadness of yesterday's events lingers.  I never met Jane.  It sounds like she had a very full and vibrant life.  I sure hope that somewhere along the way she had a conversation like the one I had with Rob yesterday.  "I hope I die doing what I love," he told me.  "But not until I'm really old and feeble."  I think of Jane's family, and the family of her pilot, and hope that they know with certainty that their loved ones died doing something that they loved.

How Our Lives Look

Yesterday we stood on the wide beach of a western shore.
I leaned against you and you wrapped your arms around me.
We listened to the crashing waves and watched the rays surfing in the clear blue.
We talked about sea-breezes and land- breezes and made love one last time in the hotel.
Then we boarded one plane and then another, winging our way home.

Today we sang together an old Bette Midlar song
And you played your guitar
We ate oatmeal and I pounded chicken breasts and cooked them for your trip.
We went belt shopping and found leather gloves and a beanie to keep you warm.
And then you left for Quebec.
And I came here to catch babies.

Tomorrow you will fly home to me
And we will sleep together, my head on your shoulder for awhile, in OUR bed.
And we will wake up the next day and eat eggs.
And there will be music, and errands, and lunch with your dad
And then our children will come home and fill our house.

Every once in awhile I catch myself-
I remember the days of anxiety when I couldn't imagine what our lives would be like and when I would ask you to tell me how our lives would look.
Now, when I remember those days, I think: like this. This is how our lives look.

Surprise Trip to Cabo: on Standby

Pass travel has its known hassles, but sometimes, the delays and inconveniences have nothing to do with flying standby and everything to do with WEATHER.

It was a work day for me and for Rob.  He was at the end of a 5-day, waking up in Houston.  I was scheduled to see patients until 5pm.  The plan was for me to leave work and head straight to the airport.  Rob and I would meet in Chicago if he didn't make it home.  What complicated things, was a late February snow-storm heading our way.  I kept checking the weather report, watching as flights in and out were delayed, and then cancelled.  I got good news when he managed to make it home late morning.  I drove to the airport on my lunch hour, picked him up and we had HyVee Chinese for lunch, all the while watching the snow pile up and discussing our Plan B and even Plan C options.  I kept throwing out my best guesses as to where we were going.  He was clearly thrilled to keep me in suspense.

When I returned to work, I had more good news and was really feeling optimistic that we would make it out of town at least.  The office was closing early due to weather.  I called Rob and he planned to pick me up at 3:00.

Our original flight to Chicago had been scheduled to leave at 6:30, but it had, alas, been cancelled.  Since the office had let me out early, we would try to get on an earlier flight, probably the last flight out.
But upon our arrival, we found the 4:20 had a 4 hour delay!  Oh my!  That would mean we'd miss our flight out of Chicago.  Our only option was to drive.

It's about 2 1/2 hours and despite the weather, we made decent time.  Rob dropped me off at the terminal and went to park in the employee lot.  After checking in and making it through security, the first thing I noticed were the long lines of travelers stretching from the customer service counter, down the length of the terminal.  Uh oh...Turns out that not just our flight, but just about every flight out of Chicago, was cancelled that night. Here's how the boards looked:

And there's our 8:26 flight to Houston. Cancelled.  Oh, Look!  We could go to London instead.  ;)

Rob eventually met me back at the terminal.  He immediately set to work on the laptop looking at our options.  I suggested that we might not want to delay finding a room for the night, as that long line of delayed travelers was fresh in my memory.  After reassuring himself that he could still get us where we needed to be the next morning, with any luck that is, we set off to meet the hotel shuttle to our luxurious  accommodations for the night.

A budget hotel in any city is still a budget hotel.  I didn't care.  This felt like an adventure.  At the La Quinta,  we ordered in some pasta from a pizza place that delivered and both enjoyed the first real carbs we had eaten for weeks.

3am came so early this morning!  Ouch! But we got through security and set off for our gates.  Yes. Gates.  Now the standby game gets real.  We have several options, Newark, which leaves first, San Francisco, or Houston.  Any of those can potentially get us to our destination, but we not only have to make it onto the flight out of Chicago, we also have to make it onto the flight from any of those cities.  Rob was furiously working the numbers, trying to figure odds of success.  We let the Newark flight leave without us...it departed from the furthest gate and running to try to make it would put us in danger of not being able to try for the two others.

We were standing in line to get on the Houston flight.  Getting seats was easy, a nice surprise, (where are all those folks who were trying to leave Chicago last night?  Did we beat them to the starting line this morning?) but Rob was uncertain.  He asked the gate attendant if she could look at the San Fran flight to let us know if it looked as 'wide open' as this one was.  She was NO help! She tried to tell us that the flight we had so easily gotten seats on was not wide open at all.  The risk is that we take the flight to Houston and then cannot get on our flight to the beach.  Rob was so uneasy, I told him we should just not board this flight.  Obviously he had a hunch of some kind.  I thought we should listen to that.  Of course, the risk of listening to that hunch, giving up our seats on this flight (breaking the cardinal rule of pass-travel) was that we would not be able to get on the San Fran flight.  We reasoned that if we could not get to our destination, it would be better to find that out when we were still fairly close to home....just a short car trip away, rather than to get all the way across the country and get stuck.   If we couldn't make it out of Chicago this morning, we decided, we would just head home and spend a few days with his daughter instead.

So, we did it.  We gave up our seats on the Houston flight.  We now had about an hour.  So we had breakfast.  Honestly, if you have to eat airport food, breakfast is the way to go!  The first coffee of the day (yes, seriously, we made all those harried decisions without the benefit of caffeine!) and some delicious omelets.

Here is our view of the snow plows clearing the runways as we ate breakfast:

Well, the good news is: We got on the San Francisco flight.  I am not sure what kind of deal-making went on.  I know that Rob asked for my passport and told me I should take a bathroom break.  When I returned there was a bit of nodding and winking going on.  He had told the gate agent about how he was surprising me with this trip.  She loved the idea and was happy to help out.  It was tight.  We did not get on easily, but we made it. He assured me that no travelers were left behind for our sake.

We met a lovely older couple en route.  Turns out, they were heading to Cabo San Lucas. Oh?  You can get to Cabo from San Francisco, eh?  Hmmmm.  They had been many times before and though they knew the chance of making their connection was slim; (we were delayed out of Chicago) they were happy to stay in the city for the night if they missed it.

Turns out, after a sweaty all-out run for our gate, we made the connection to Cabo and our friends did not.  Did we take their seats?  I hope not, but I thought of them enjoying some fresh sushi in downtown San Francisco and didn't feel too bad about it.

This was our two-day travel adventure.  Some weather issues, some pass-travel stress, but in the end, we made it!  Cabo is beautiful.  What a great Valentine's Day gift.  I loved being surprised, loved trying to guess, loved that he kept it a secret until we arrived, panting, at our gate.

Turns out, I just love being the girlfriend of a pilot!

The Bitter Beginning of This Blog

"Girlfriend of Pilot"  

HA!  Warning.  If you start reading, please follow it through to the end.  There are some rather bitter and angry parts...hopefully I come full circle by the end. 

There are a multitude of blogs written by "wives of pilots" describing what it's like to live with someone who's job has them in the skies 2/3 of the month.  I had looked at a couple of these about a year ago, just as Rob was interviewing with airlines for his first job in the commercial airline industry.  This was very early in our relationship.   It didn't look good to me at the time.  The advice ran in the direction of: You  must be a strong and independent woman to live with a pilot, not afraid to hire home maintenance jobs on your own, shovel snow, and sleep alone most nights.  You must have a life of your own with strong social connections, friends and family to rely on when those 4 and 5 day trips fall on special occasions and holidays.  You must remember that his job is stressful and when he comes home, he doesn't need a to-do list, or to hear about how stressful your week has been, he needs you to nurture him, to greet him with a warm embrace and a warm meal waiting.  He's out there sleeping in lonely, sterile hotel rooms, sharing meals with people he only just met, flying through storms, missing Christmas, dealing with unruly rampers and gate agents, sometimes hostile passengers and he's doing it all to put food on your table. He's underpaid and overstressed.  Your job is to make his life easier. 

Yeah.  I call bullshit. 

Pilots are adrenaline junkies.  They do what they do because they love it.  They love the thrill and the drama of it.  They love the speed and the danger.  How nice for them, really, to have a live-in property manager, maid and cook to keep the home-fires burning so when they are done flying their big airplanes they can come home and have someone hand them a cold beer. How nice that you have to take into account how stressful and lonely their lives are but they don't have to take that into account about your life, the life that you live alone, 2 frickin' thirds of the time.  Do the math on that one:  a twenty year career. How many years away from home? 13.3.  Yep. That's more time away than if you were serving a prison sentence.  I know. I KNOW.  Couples struggle with careers that keep them apart all the time.  Think of military spouses.  I do think of them.  I think of how nice it would be to know that when your loved one made it home, you'd have him there with you for more than 2 or 3 days at a time. 

I also think that you cannot compare the two.  Military men and women are making a huge sacrifice, in service of something that they value strongly. Airline pilots have a lot of responsibility, sure, much like bus drivers do. In fact, not sure there's a whole lot of difference.  Glorified bus-drivers. 

This is me being negative.  I haven't come around yet.  All the blogs say that I will; that is, if this relationship is going to survive. They say that I will, in time, be able to see the positive aspects of his career and how it will shape our relationship in many good ways.  They say that the first year is the hardest.  I've told Rob that too. First holidays alone, first time having to deal with the mechanic alone, first time having to shovel this huge driveway alone.  Really, just the "being alone."  The "airline wives" blogs say that I will even begin to appreciate being alone.  Hmmmm.  I just don't see that yet.

My life is just a holding pattern when he is gone.  I go through the motions.  I count down the days.  I go to work.  Yes, I am blessed to share some of that time with my children. They make it better.  They make it possible. But the long days alone, when they are with their dad and Rob is off flying.  Oh, those days are hard.  

He is impatient with my progress.  He anticipates my low mood everytime he gets a 3 or 4 day trip.  And, mostly he's right.  It hits me every time.  Not just that he's not around right now, but that this is how my life looks now.  He says that I make it all about me, that I don't take into consideration that he is just as upset as I am when his last flight of the day is delayed and he can't make it home, that I don't consider that he is stuck in the crew room sleeping in a recliner because we can't afford a hotel room this month. Well.  I do consider that.  But, I also consider that he knew it would be like this; he knows it will continue to be like this.  And yet, he is willing to put up with it so that he can live his dream.  

His dream.  That's why I am still struggling with this.  He loves to fly.  He is good at it.  I actually believe that this is what he should be doing.  So, when he says, "forget it, I can't do this.  I can't risk our relationship.  I will quit and go back to selling insurance."  I say, "No."  I won't be that girl.  I won't be the one that grounds him. I really and truly want him to be happy.  I really and truly wish I was the kind of woman that those blogs describe: independent, a social butterfly, someone with a large circle of friends and family.  Can I become her? Well, I cannot invent family I don't have. I cannot change certain circumstances of my life: the shared custody that means I only get my kids half the time.  But, I can and I must be proactive about creating a life on my own.  Even just typing that brings tears to my eyes.  I don't WANT a life "on my own". When you finally meet that one person that truly completes you, that brings you so much joy you can't imagine you lived without it all your life, the person that you hunger for....you just want to BE WITH them. Who would choose a life that looks like this?

This is how I am.  A little bit crazy. I go back and forth.  Back and forth.  Truth is, I have to make some changes because I'm not going to let him give up his dream and I don't want to live my life feeling like a martyr.  This is where I am. One year in.  Just cannot see the positive in this yet.  I believe those other women when they say it was hard for them in the beginning.  That does give me a sense of hope...somewhat. So, I ask myself, what can I do in the coming year to see some improvement? How can we make his crazy career work with our lives? I don't know the answers yet.  But, I am willing to look for them.