As a child,
one of my recurrent dreams was that I could fly. If I was in any danger (I don’t
really remember what I perceived danger to be at seven years of age), I could
lift myself off the ground and soar a bit above the people whose hands reached out to
grab at my feet, which were always dangling just a few inches above their outstretched
hands. I remember how wonderful it felt to fly with so little effort on my
part. There was no fear there. I like to think that this dream is a metaphor
for my life, or at least for the way I wanted to live it growing up, and have
lived it to some extent thus far. I don’t want to be pulled back down to earth,
not when I want to soar into the clouds and fly free. Indeed, my dream symbolism
book tells me that flying may mean several things: ‘
wishful thinking; astral projection; suggestion to rise above a
problem’. I often think that is why I have such an affinity for birds;
there are people I know who can just summarily ignore them or not even see
them. They are not conscious of these wonderful creatures flying about and
above us. How can you ignore them, I wonder? I cannot. I watch how they behave,
I watch how they land and take off. I watch how they watch what is going on
around them as they are going about their business, and I listen to them ‘talk’
to each other. It is no surprise to me, after watching birds soar majestically
toward a shining sun, that man wanted to fly, and set about learning how. When
you look at how far man has come in that endeavor, I can only say--hats off to
scientists, engineers, architects, and dreamers everywhere who helped make that
dream come true. I said it yesterday and I’ll say it again here—those who
dreamed big and made plane flight a reality for the common man—they are the
ones who deserve the Nobel prizes for science and engineering. I watched a
documentary program about the Concorde supersonic planes recently, and despite the
tragic end to the Concorde airline, they were beautiful planes—far ahead of their
time. It was moving to see how the Concorde pilots became emotional when
talking about their planes. I could almost understand how they felt, even
though I have never piloted a plane. But after listening to them, and after
watching the incredible air show here in Oslo yesterday (to commemorate 100
years of military flight in Norway), I could almost say that I wished I had
learned to pilot a plane. Even though I know that I would probably be satisfied
if I could sit in the cockpit of a large plane one day and watch pilots at
work. I would love to see what they see and to really understand how planes
take off and land.
I’ve never seen
an air show before in my life; after yesterday’s spectacular exhibition over
the Oslo harbor area, I wouldn’t mind seeing more of them. Watching F16s and
Alpha-jets roar through the sky, diving, turning, flying upside down,
accelerating, dropping, flying completely perpendicular to the earth, flying in
synchrony—it’s an incredible feeling to observe them, like watching birds flying in formation. The Patrouille de France aerobatics demonstration team performed at yesterday's airshow, and here is a link to a video (not mine) on YouTube that will give you an idea of how beautifully they flew.
The air show also featured demonstrations of two Norwegian helicopters--the Sea King that is used in search and rescue operations, and the Bell helicopter, both impressive to watch. The amusing thing was that the seagulls, geese and ducks were flying very low to the water yesterday, probably because they were wondering what sort of huge birds had taken over the skies above them where they normally like to be. I like to think too that maybe they were trying to impress us with their grace and flying abilities, since they had such big metal birds to compete with. I noticed them. And nothing will ever beat a bird for grace and beauty in flying. But the air show planes come close.
