not of our own making
Heat lightning flashed all around as I drove home, and the rains began again just as I walked in the door. Larry and I were going to go flying on Thursday evening but quick-moving thunderstorms prevented it. The rain hadn’t yet begun but we stood in the grass by the runway and felt the cooler breeze begin to feed the storm’s appetite for air. I love the imminence of storms sometimes.
Larry loves that little airport, as do I. He said he’d love to fly from coast to coast only stopping at small, municipal airports and rural strips. I would love to do that too, perhaps as part of a photo-journalism piece for a magazine. Something about Sugar Valley in particular entices me. I think it’s the contradiction inherent in the atmosphere there–specifically, how the airport itself is tantamount to a farm out in the middle of the countryside. Roosters crow over the trees in the early morning. The grasses blow gently and ripples form on the surface of the lake. It has all the trappings of rural North Carolina: familiar, serene, peaceful. But what occurs there is far removed from the realm of immediate experience of such a large percentage of the population. Talk about flying small airplanes to a passerby and you almost might as well be discussing alligator wrestling or bungee jumping. There’s a certain exotic-ness to it. Those two qualities are consciously at odds more some days than others, but they’re always there to some degree. I like that tension.