“Life is a daring adventure, or nothing.”

In a recent online conversation with Matt, he reminded about storytelling, and how it becomes a part of our personal story. Things that happen to us, get translated into stories we tell ourselves and others, and then they shape us. I first wrote this story, probably ten years of years ago.

“Life is a daring adventure, or nothing.”

So said Helen Keller, and I was about to prove it! This was it. I had built this little airplane and now had to fly it. No more excuses.

Looking through the spinning propeller of my un-flown, home built airplane, I contemplated the thousand metre runway lined up ahead. I was ready for takeoff. After two years of building, there was nothing to do but push down the throttle and fly, except maybe say a prayer: Please God, let me have tightened all the bolts and read the plans right!

I gripped the control stick in my sweaty hand, and rehearsed again: ‘Stick full back, release brakes, full throttle, stick forward, tail up, steer straight down the runway with the my feet on the rudder pedals until she lifts herself off, then climb out and watch the airspeed’... Right? I hope so.

It was time to fly. Okay, here we go! Stick back, release the brakes, full throttle (holy smokes, this thing accelerates fast), start forward pressure on stick ...... LIFTOFF!  ALREADY? In three seconds I was off the runway and pitched back in my seat as the airplane climbed out at a thirty degree angle. All I could see ahead was clear blue sky. I was too afraid to look back. I had never expected my harmless looking little airplane it to fly with such, well, enthusiasm! Like an unlikely rider on the back of a homesick angel, I hung on tight.

I thrilled at how she was handling, and was equally glad for the borrowed parachute strapped to my back. Eventually, I found the courage to steal a look at the sight of the airport shrinking below.  I gasped. It was gorgeous. Flying in an open cockpit for the first time in my life, I gushed over how clear and green the world looked without cockpit glass. I did a quick check of the instruments: A-Okay, I thought, but everything is happening more quickly than I had expected. Guess, I might just as well relax and enjoy the ride. Before I passed over the runway threshold, I was 300 metres feet above ground level.

I pushed the stick forward and throttled back into cruise attitude. I did some gentle turns. I stuck out my left arm to the feel the wind in the propeller blast and the airplane, all by itself, started a turn to the left! I stuck out my right arm and she turned to the right. More than just responsive, I thought. I let go of the controls and put both arms straight up out of the cockpit over my head in the wind stream. The airplane started a gentle decent. Perfect. I looked around at the mountains around me, the great Fraser River below, felt the sun and wind on my face and took in the open sky around and above. This is fantastic, I thought, a little scary, I admit, but fantastic. I took a big breath and thought to myself with a big smile, I think I am going to like this.”

This airplane was a ‘dream-come-true’ for me. I went on to fly it about 400 hours before I sold it. I had an engine failure, a minor crash landing, built floats for it, flew it cross country, cruised farmers’ fields and mountain tops, but nothing stands out in this “story” more than the first flight. I see there are many dreams we can seek out in our lives, whatever they are for each of us. And I see now how fulfilling one dream only leads to the next. “Now that I have done this, what else shall I try that I never before imaged was within my grasp?” The adventure of chasing our dreams changes us. We grow and learn. We become more of who we are. We find the things we dream about point to our gifts. And, one by one, as we bring our gifts into the world in our quest to fulfill our dreams, we find fulfillment and happiness. Our quest never ends, but our gains along the way buoy us. The world becomes bigger and smaller at the same time. Now all things are possible, limited only by the time we have to stride alive in the magic kingdom.

But of course, the question is how! All of us are prepared by childhood and our adult world to do what-we-are-supposed-to-do. Most of us must break free somehow, to seek our dreams. So how do we get to the head of the runway, metaphorically speaking, ready to take off for our dreams in the first place? This is a question I never tire of asking other dreamers – What have you done to get here with your dreams? And I get as many answers as people answering, but I do see some common themes in their stories.

For my part, I think the hardest part is getting to the point where we are capable of making the choice to set out in the first place. It was a big job building the airplane, for example, going from idea to flyable airplane. But once I and the airplane were ready, flying it, was easy, and fun too, though sometimes scary. So, I say, we get started by ‘building’ ourselves. We ‘are’ the airplane for flying into our life’s dreams.

“But that’s too obvious”, I can imagine some of you protesting, “We all know it’s about developing ourselves”. And it is obvious. But the problem is this; what passes for common sense in our world today has us developing too many things that hinder us and not enough of the things that help us make the choice to go for it! Or as the recently deceased Stephen Covey once said, we are climbing a ladder alright, but it’s leaning against the wrong wall!

How do we find our “right wall for our ladder, and then, how do we prepare ourselves to make the choice to climb it in the face of all the things we are otherwise “supposed-to-do”?

Questions, questions, questions!

Meanwhile, one of my next projects is to build and fly an airplane with a group of 15, or so, young Singaporeans in 2013. If you want to contribute in any way - with sponsorship, building space, $, participants -  whatever -  jump in!

Here is the advertisement:

Attention: Project 7Cs Take Flight is looking for 15 people to build and fly an airplane together as a team in 2013. No experience is necessary; just a determination to do extraordinary things for extraordinary results. For more details visit: www.sail7Cs.com/7cstakeflight.htm

Not interested in building an airplane? Come and hear Cresswell speak of his adventures anyway. VENUE Bluejaz Club, Singapore, February. See above link for details.

Companioinship on the Passage

This week another passage. 

Before dawn, I rise from my morning meditation in Singapore, pull on my pants and head into the predawn day. This week’s passage is not trivial, though it is just an overnight passage. It’s a passage across 13,000 kilometers, though it is one as effortless as reading. It’s a passage across the biggest ocean, and across most of a continent, though I will barely be called upon to so much as keep track of where we are until we arrive. It’s a passage half way around the planet in less than 24 hours, and I will barely lift a finger.

This morning I awake in my parent’s home. The furnace rumbling, the house still as the slow December dawn draws up night’s curtain on another day in the magical kingdom. Outside the window in the basement guest room the sky is pink in cold looking clouds. The stillness of the pond could easily be mistaken for ice. I sit this morning looking over the frosted backyard grass wondering why I was so weepy last night, not a quality I often experience in myself.

Am I weepy because I fear losing my parents? My Dad and Mom and I are feeling particularly vulnerable after Dad’s midnight ambulance ride to the hospital last week. Subsequent tests yesterday found nothing untoward, even confirmed his quadruple bypasses of three years all clear to be all clear. I do fear the approaching days when I will lose my parents, but that is not why I am weepy.

Am I weepy because I fear losing my friends? At the other end of this country, on Vancouver Island, friends struggle through the festive season with a course of radiation and chemo therapy to treat a recently discovered brain tumour. Mid way across the country, in Winnipeg, a family member battles lung cancer, with the same treatment. Home in Singapore, still another friend grapples with cancer, cancer of the liver. And so on. It seems this month, unhappily, too many of those whom I value are under threat. Am I weepy because I fear for my friends? No, I am weepy because, in the warmth of my parents’ home, I am to let down my guard and allow my feelings of overwhelm to rise, my feelings of sadness because I have been too far away from too many whom I love for too long.

This morning I remember that to be in the presence of those we love, is to be back in the presence of life. And to have death threatening at the back door makes sure I pay attention. To remember that we are never out of life or death’s reach, or love, it’s just that we are able to forget for a while when we fill up our lives with the stuff of striving. True, to live we must scratch together what we need in the scramble, but it is too easy to mistake the stuff we seek with what is important – connection, friendship, family – the many faces of love and life. Threat of death, is like a slap to the side of the head. Wake Up! Pay attention! Be in love! And I know Irena, on the other side of the planet, is receiving the same reminders as I.