adrenaline, was why do you soar?

Like Solo89, my passion to fly started with dreams, and it started
very young. I don?t remember how old I was, probably two or three, but
I experienced wonderful flying dreams in which I would soar high above
the earth, and then fall, swiftly and precipitously toward the ground,
but always at the last moment my fall would evolve into a swoop and a
flair, and I would settle, lightly as a feather into deep green grass.
So powerful were these dreams, that one Sunday morning while my
parents were sleeping, I stood at the head of a flight of stairs, and
after some hesitation leaped out flapping my arms. I don?t know for
sure, but this was probably when my flying dreams ceased.

Many years later at a period when life was not going particularly well
for me, and I was feeling the need to get in closer contact with
whatever was happening inside my head, I embarked on a course of dream
work. I don?t know exactly why, but it seemed self-evident to me that
I should try to recapture those sublime moments of dream flying. Every
night before falling asleep, I would give myself the suggestion:
?Tonight you will fly.? But getting there was not so easy. I had many
dreams of standing by the side of runways watching planes take off, of
sitting in waiting rooms with my flight delayed. But after months and
months and months of trying I finally did begin to fly, first as a
passenger in someone else?s roadster, and then in my own car, and
finally as in childhood, swooping high above the earth with only my
outstretched arms for wings. Eventually I was able to achieve ?waking
dreams? where I would be consciously aware that I was dreaming, and
able to control the direction of my flights and my dreams.

I am a sailor and skier as well as a soaring pilot and I?ve often
asked myself what is there in common that attracts me to these
pursuits. Certainly there is the ?adrenaline thing.? I enjoy some
measure of risk so long as it is risk that I have control over. But at
the root, I?m more of a vestibular junkie than a seeker of adrenaline
highs. I love the feel of a deck dancing under my feet, I?m addicted
to the swoop and glide of a fast ski run, and I feel very much at home
turning tightly in a thermal, especially if I can see a hawk sharing
the lift off my wing tip. To ask the question, why do I fly? Is almost
like asking why should I breathe? I am at my happiest when my body is
moving through space, and these three pastimes, sailing skiing and
soaring give me the power to choose where and how my body shall move
through space. The power to choose is important ? roller coasters are
not nearly so interesting.

At 70 I asked myself, If you don?t learn to actually fly now, when
will you? And so I became a student. I?ve been flying a little over
two years now and I have a little under 200 hours under my belt. I?m
starting to make cross-country flights and I just bought my first GPS.
There?s a whole world of flying ahead of me. I can hardly wait for the
next challenge!