Better in the Air

I don't know a soul who's not been battered

I don't have a friend who feels at ease

I don't know a dream that's not been shattered

Or driven to its knees

But it's alright, it's alright

For we lived so well so long

Still, when I think of the

Road we're traveling on

I wonder what's gone wrong

I can't help it, I wonder what has gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying

I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly

And looking back down at me

Smiled reassuringly

And I dreamed I was flying

And high up above my eyes could clearly see

The Statue of Liberty

Sailing away to sea

And I dreamed I was flying

We come on the ship they call The Mayflower

We come on the ship that sailed the moon

We come in the age's most uncertain hours

And sing an American tune

Oh, and it's alright, it's alright, it's alright

You can't be forever blessed

Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day

And I'm trying to get some rest

That's all I'm trying to get some rest

-Paul Simon

Pretty lazy to start a post with a long song quote, but it sort of captures the morning.

Disorienting, all of these last several months. And somehow we go about our days, trying to cobble together enough compensated time to pay the rent and keep body and soul together for another few hours. I attend a Zoom mediation, draft and file an appellate brief, respond to plaintive clients complaining their way through what is for most the greatest crisis of their lives, this lawsuit they're enduring. Then P lights up this old condo when she walks through the door, we fall into our favorite chairs for a cocktail and a regaling of the day, and after supper we soak away the aches and pains in this creaky old meat bag before falling into bed. Such is life these days. Rinse and repeat.

And in the background the steady hum of the end of the American experiment, knowing we'll never return to what we've lost but hopeful that somehow, something better may emerge, even if it's in a rump confederation of progressive states who've figured out how to retain all that federal tax money they send to the neo-Confederate states that in turn invade them on the pretext of "insurrection".

There is no insurrection. Would you like to know what that looks like? Search "January 6th" on YouTube, watch, and weep.

The only place this crisis doesn't permeate for me is in the air, several thousand feet above all the human melee.

Yesterday I flew the twenty minutes or so from Canandaigua Airport to KELM and my friends at Premier Aviation. It was a glorious if hot day, with the hills now rapidly shedding their green canopies for orange and brown, yellow and vivid red. All so peaceful from up there, an idyllic autumnal landscape unlike anything we have or had in Florida.

As I crossed Canandaigua Lake, I spotted off the starboard wingtip our condo complex at Cliffside, the Seneca's "Chosen Spot" and for Peg and me our Happy Place, with our back to the world and our face pointed toward the lake.

Drawing the focus a little closer, you can see the row of squat, flat-topped buildings just below the spit of land that forms a lagoon along Bopple Hill Road.

Not much entertainment in that spot, no Florida style goofy golf or tourist buffets or fake Margaritaville amusements. But the view's unmatched, the chef better than any I've encountered, the companionship irreplaceable. A Happy Place indeed.

Crossing the eastern shore of Canandaigua I had the opportunity to cross Keuka Lake twice--there's a reason its former name was Crooked Lake.

And then over the ridge and a quick descent into KELM. I understand the air traffic controllers everywhere are working extra shifts, often without pay, as a result of the coup and the shutdown. I felt like thanking each of them every time I changed frequencies, but somewhere in the back of my mind my old T-37 instructors were chiding me to keep radio chatter to a minimum. Those guys are all still in my head, 38 years later, which is probably why I'm still here and not an NTSB statistic.

And just like that the flight was over. Not a lot of time to reflect on one of those short hops--you take off, check in with approach and arrange VFR flight following, then start checking arrival weather and winds and trying to predict the landing runway. Climb check gives way to cruise check gives way to descent check in the space of a few minutes.

The Mighty Columbia will now sit a bit--the next scheduled departure will be on the 17th to attend Dad's Celebration of Life, which sounds like it's going to be more of a tailgate party at Johnnie's house. Probably a good thing that I'll get about six hours to reflect at altitude on the way there, and another six to reflect on the way home, wherever "home" is.