Happiness

CAVU is facing some personal challenges in her family, a close one's severe illness. It is so easy to become negative when this kind of thing is going on, and if on top of that, one is worried about one's country, it's too easy to feel the weight of the world on one's shoulders.

So I am making a concerted effort to take note of the small, beautiful things in life. Spring is beautiful anywhere, and CAVU is lucky enough to live where there is still a little bit of wild. Outside our sliding glass doors right now are dozens of tiny yellow wild lilies that come up every year. They don't last long, but they are so beautiful.

CAVU was also lucky to escape caretaking duties for a few hours, and found herself at the airport to update a database in her plane. It was a spectacular day, the first day of real spring (CAVU lives way up north). I decided I just had to get into the air, as my opportunities now are so infrequent. I took off and climbed straight up among the clouds, turned east toward the mountains, and just soaked up every joyful moment as much as I could. Steep spiral back down through another gap in the clouds (a steep spiral is actually an emergency maneuver I hadn't practiced in awhile, but it's also fun), and back for a couple of cross-wind landings. It was pure joy.