My day planner was filled—line by line, day by day. Each morning I consulted it and prepared for the list of duties it dictated about how I would spend my time. Blank lines on its future pages didn’t wait long for ink to fill them. My corporate days as a manager were behind me, and in their place were days filled with PTA meetings and carpools, managing an eight- and a ten-year-old child at home. Don’t get me wrong. I love my children. But my routine was predictable, busy, and uninspiring. One typical school morning, I awoke to find my planner missing. Panicking, I searched where it should have been, everywhere it could have gone. Nowhere. What was I supposed to be doing? Where was I supposed to be? The quick solution: fix it. Drop the children off at school, and stop by the bookstore for a new one. Picking up the new planner, I thumbed through its clean pages. Soon my life would return to normal. But normal was not what I wanted. I too had become lost. Refill a replaced planner or live a new life? Could I fulfill my childhood dream at age 45? Days later, I ran back to the store to buy a book on becoming a pilot. The topics were intriguing, technical, and completely foreign—I knew nothing about any of them and, on top of it, was brought up in a family terrified of air travel. I read it thoroughly and highlighted what I didn’t know, which was everything. On the insistence of my close friends—the Chicks in Charge—I finally signed up for classes at an airfield in the East Bay region of California. On my first lesson in the air, my fate was sealed. I loved the air. I would become a pilot.I would find a way to overcome my fears. I was in for the ride of my life. Along the way, like all student pilots must do, I had to fly solo, starting with short distances. I prepared for days, putting down all of the details on 3×5 cards, such as all the transmitted messages I needed to say and when, the altitude up and when to start down, when to change the power settings, and how to come into the Modesto airport area. I was ready. Prepared … or so I thought. Here is an excerpt from my book, Finding the Wow: How Dreams Take Flight at Midlife (www.findingthewow.com) from Big Table Publishing: It will take about 20 minutes to reach Modesto in the interior valley. Every moment is alive. I watch the soundlessness of other aircraft in the distance, rising to their assigned places; listen to the peace that is interrupted by the chatter of local towers to other pilots; look down on the lines of roads and rails and small, inner-valley towns, and compare them to where they are on my charts. It is glorious, this architecture of nature and humankind. All mine, at my feet, outside my windows. My spirits rise. The day gets warmer. I reach to adjust the air vents. Suddenly, SWOOSH go my note cards. Blown away, one after another, soaring out the window or slipping out of reach into the baggage area in back. Oh, my God! A stream of profanity follows. Then: Clear your head. Fly the plane. What else can I do? Fly the plane. Ask for the frequency from radar control … It’s going to be okay. Don’t panic. Fly the plane. The frequency for radar is already set. I see a blimp floating blissfully along in the distance. I sit up straighter. My hands are sweating. In a matter of minutes, I’ll arrive at my destined airport. But I’ve taken on altitude. I’m too high. I sort out what I must do first. I’m nearing their airspace and must be cleared before I can join it. MJ: “Radar Control, 5483Bravo [my aircraft’s identifying tail number] with a request.” Hurry! Respond! Radar Control: “83Bravo. Say request.” The voice gives me some numbers I need and rapidly dial in to know how the wind is there and the runway to use, and then can talk to the tower at Modesto. “Modesto weather, 1851Zulu …” says the recorded system, speaking in its usual slow voice. Of all times, I need it at auctioneer speed. “… You have information Uniform.” At last. I’m on the cusp of Modesto airspace. MJ: “Modesto Tower,” I begin quickly, with an artificial calm. “5483Bravo, north of the field, 10 miles; request a touch-and-go. With Uniform.” They are pleasant and tell me I’m cleared to come in. That’s just fine except I had my plan illustrated on my cards, including when I should have reached a stabilized altitude and distance and speed. I’m way too high at this point and am going 15 knots too fast. I spot the airfield and see the silhouettes of the guys in the tower. “I can figure this out,” I say out loud. “I can. It’s just another airfield— long, black, with white numbers on each end. Visualize the entry. Picture the approach.” My heart races. I look around for other aircraft. I’m clear. I decide to break from my heading, circle out and over the tower to fix my situation, then come back in for my setup. This is highly irregular—not the kind of standard, stabilized approach that any of my books recommend. And the FAA hates nonstandard. But here it goes. Tower: “83Bravo,” says the voice, confused. “What … are you doing?” MJ: “I’m going outbound to re-enter. 83Bravo.” I turn back in, and in losing the altitude pick up too much speed and am coming in too fast. The numbers grow larger on the runway. Bravo barely touches the wheels on the runway when I throw the power back in, reconfigure for takeoff, and go north for Concord. Done. We’re rising again. But it wasn’t how I wanted to do it. Not how I should have done it. MJ: “83Bravo northbound,” I blurt. Tower: “Roger that, 83Bravo. But, uh, let us know in advance the next time you want to practice fighter-pilot landings. Best wishes,” and he snaps off. I wish it had gone better, but chewing myself out right now will not help. Learning on the job is still learning. I shake off these last few minutes that felt like hours. I follow the route back home in reverse, guided by the rivers, roads, and rails. In the distance is my landmark: a pond that signals to me like a metallic reflector, guiding me home, where I suddenly want to be, feeling the earth solidly beneath my feet again. I’ve had my fill of the sky for the day. The sheep and cattle still stand where I last saw them. “I screwed up back there,” I murmur. Like they care. I set up to land, knowing this airfield and all its landmarks by heart. I come down, fighting wind gusts from the west but winning the battles with a wing lowered into the wind and a punch to the rudder. Squeak. Lovely sound. Exhausted, I taxi and park. Bravo stops with a shudder, exactly how I feel. I slide down in my seat, sorting out what just happened. I close my eyes and picture the cards for my flight plan, resting atop trees in central California’s orchards. How easily panic can win. How it didn’t, but how easily it can. Feel the fear, but fly the plane. I rewrite the cards that night. And memorize the important parts. I vow to never go back to Modesto. “You need to go back to Modesto,” Kevin [my flight instructor] says a few days later. “Shake out the doubts. Do the flight again.” From this experience and many others I logged as a student pilot, I learned how to operate an airplane, why it’s important to heed my instinct for self-preservation, but most importantly what it means to really live. Here are some key lessons I discovered about how to follow a dream to the skies or your dream to wherever you go:
Lesson #1: Do What You Have Always Loved
To get your dream going, loosen your ties to your digital or day planner. It gives guidance but can also tie you to many busy tasks, keeping you from your dreams. If you lost your planner, what would you do? Look at the recurring themes of what you love to show you what is fulfilling—from childhood forward. What you once loved may still be drawing you back. They are the things that make your heart sing. Your passion—people, environment, places, and activities—are in the attics of your past that still hold your dreams. If I had passed up on my dream of learning to fly, passed up on what I yearned to do, I would have missed out on where I belong; of learning what I needed to become. Where do you belong? According to a recent Forbes study,1 the majority of workers is unhappy. Strive to be fulfilled and motivated.
Lesson #2: Pick Great Companions
Surround yourself with people who encourage your passion. They should challenge you too. Together, look at how to make things possible. Critics tell you to quit. Friends tell you that the best things can be hard and to keep trying. They know that the importance of being who you want to be requires risk.
Lesson #3: Don’t Let Fear Hold You Back
Fears start at a young age. Recall the dark and scary nights when you were very young with “something” scary under the bed or maybe in the closet. How did any of us survive that? Someone else usually came in and turned on a light, and our courage returned. Whatever your passion is, a lurking monster of the night will get between you and your dream. Your light masters the dragons that scare you. And most of the scariness lies in not seeing and understanding the truth: the more you learn, the less you’ll fear.
Lesson #4: Make Mistakes and Fail Better Than the Last Time
Wanting perfection is often the path to quitting. It’s hard to be the very best at what you want to do. Some of us will be first and some will be superhuman, but most of us are just human. Perfection is nice but not required to follow your dream. When my cards blew out the window (see the story above), it could have blown away my dream with it. The most common regret, according to Bonnie Ware who wrote, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, is that many dreams go unfulfilled at life’s end, due to living a life that others expect instead of a life doing what is loved.
Lesson #5: Begin as a Beginner
To live the life you want to live, you’ll need to hear more and listen less: When following a dream, heed the calling of your heart and not the critics telling you that your dream is outside of the norm—their norm. That is the way of life as a beginner—living in the unknown and out of your comfort zone. Since only 6% of all pilots are women, and all of my classmates were young guys, I felt like the housemother who crashed a fraternity party. All new things must be learned, new people must be met who will teach them, and new surroundings must be experienced. Remember the famous line from The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy said, “Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”? You’ll feel the same way. But did she ever really fit in Kansas anyway? Do you?
Lesson #6: Keep Your Sense of Humor
“Manners matter. Good looks are a bonus. Humor is a must.” —Anonymous Becoming a pilot opened more doors, including one that led to my other dreams:spaceflight. In 2016, an experiment I created will be flown to the International Space Station.My map to the stars was not completely laid out the day I started to learn to fly. But when you do what you love, that’s where it leads. Whatever your airplane is, fly it!
About MJ Marggraff
MJ Marggraff
MJ Marggraff is a commercial pilot and became a flight instructor. She tells her flying stories in published articles and as a speaker, and received recognition for best in humor from Aviatrix Aerogram magazine. She is currently working on a new project that will be launched to the International Space Station in spring 2016. Her next idea relates to long-duration space flight. Her latest book, Finding the Wow: How Dreams Take Flight at Midlife (Big Table Publishing, Boston; www.findingthewow.com; available from Amazon books, May 4, 2016) is about how she decided to follow her childhood dream at age 45,overcome her fears, and learn to fly. With her friends, the Chicks in Charge, she found the ways do what it takes to do what you love.