Gliding

It was a rhetorical question, for at that moment I was unaware of everyday feelings and emotions - I was in the new world of fledgling vultures severely battling to come to grips with a completely new, yet age old form of motion. Gliding.

Since the first creatures ever left the stable and secure ground they have found a rare mixture of excitement and relaxation in gliding. It must be the most effortless form of adrenalin production known to man.

Most of us have glode - not glided, but glode as in glowed. It's the look on a kid's face as he completes his first successful phoophey slide mission, or the feeling one gets on ice, or having let go at full cut across the wakes on a slalom, or the split second at which you're both balanced and mobile on a skimboard. Anyone who has left the ground to hold on to a flying catch in the slips or to save a certain goal or score a match-winning try in the corner has not dived to achieve it. They have g lode and the look on each face tells a unique story. Diving results in a hard and immediate crash landing. Gliding means you only come back to earth weeks later, and you are continually reminded about it for years afterwards. I have unashamedly digressed. It is what gliding does to you.

My pilot and sole source of support went by the name of Steve - a burly, adventurous, Camel Man type of guy. Long hair and khaki shorts and enormous legs - he looked as though he should be driving 18-wheeler trucks or 14 wheel drive landrovers. He did not fit my pre­conceived image of a glider pilot. However, from the minute he strapped in behind me, I knew I was safe, with a voice and a control which was cooler and more relaxed with every meter we climbed.

There is a lot about life in gliding. You are motionless and helpless and totally dependent on the ground. It is up to the mother ship or carrier to get you off the ground to a level at which you can begin. When the glider's umbilical cord is severed, you gasp and attempt to grasp at the dangling lifeline. But you fly. Nervous at first, but becoming more confident with each turn as you grow in your thermal environment. Having achieved a certain height you have qualified to explore and really live. You do things you never deemed possible in a glider - 360's, stall turns and 200 km/h dives into a loop de loop which crushes you into your seat.

And after all the excitement there is the slow but sure passage back to earth during which senses are heightened and more pleasure is derived from seemingly everyday arbitrary sights than ever before. We cannot stay up there forever and once we realise this we appreciate so much more the things we experience.
The landing was a fittingly peaceful end to an unforgettable forty minutes. Yes, only forty minutes which will last me for the rest of my days. I can relive that time any time. I have been caught more than once rocking my chair with my feet off the ground and my eyes closed, forcing myself into my seat. The Greeks call that kairos - quality time. (Thanks, Uncle Butch!)

"You're not feeling sick are you?"
I've never felt more alive, thanks.