I sat with my sweaty fingers and cold toes trying to decide if I should grip the steering column or simply sit with my hands to myself. My instructor was talking gibberish into his headset to the control tower, "Control, this is Tango 1-2-7 Charlie. We are staged for take-off." What?! I think I caught a "niner" somewhere in the response. And then we started rolling towards the runway. I was just praying he wouldn't tell me the controls were mine anytime soon.

As I thought about the meaning of life last week while checking my Face Book account about every twenty minutes to see if a new message had arrived from one of my many friends, I was thinking about how I am at a time of my life when I should be doing fun and adventurous things, you know the kinds of activities that become nearly impossible with the arrival of children later on. I have had many hair-brained ideas over the years, so the list of possibilities was quite long. I decided to start with the expensive ones now so that I can put this tuition money to good use. First on the "expensive" list: Flying.

Today was my first flight. I flew an airplane. Even though this is something I have been thinking about for quite some time, I never actually thought I would end up doing it. Granted, I only understood about 25% of what we did today, but my very young instructor (he is my age instead of a crusty 65-year-old as I was expecting) assured me that the first day is the worst in terms of being overwhelmed. Hopefully next time I will at least be able to close the door of the plane.

Over the weekend, on my flights to and from Portland, I decided to read a book on Amelia Earhart. I felt as though I should know something about the first lady of the air, so to speak, since I am now attempting to become an aviatrix myself. She was an incredible person who encouraged women of all classes and ages to do as they liked. She believed women could do anything, not because they were women, but because they were human. Despite the fact that Amelia most likely died in her airplane somewhere in the South Pacific, I feel a renewed sense of excitement when I think about flying and the kind of freedom it brings.