A couple of days ago, I finished reading "Luck and a Lancaster", a fascinating and moving account of a pilot's experiences during a 30 mission tour with Bomber Command. It really brought an increasingly distant, but important part of our history vividly to life. His descriptions of flying by night and day, in all sorts of weather allowed me to almost feel like I was looking over his shoulder in the cockpit.
I have always wanted to learn to fly, but I will probably get no closer to it than flight sims and trips on airliners. Lately, however, I have been feeling like I am flying in cloud - that stage in a flight before breaking into the glorious, sunlit paradise above the clouds, when you can see no further than the wingtips of the plane.
It seems an ideal metaphor for the dead, numb nothingness that is depression. Occasionally, there is a break in the cloud that allows one a tantalising glimpse of the sunshine or the Earth below - our familiar, comforting home, Our condition forbids us the power to climb above to that golden place above the weather.
We have our "crew" along with us, those whom we love and who love us, our "navigators" helping us find our way home, our "radio operators" keeping us in contact with some sort of reality, our "air-gunners" keeping an eye out and protecting us from the "flak" coming up from below and the night-fighter (both real and imagined) that are out to get us...
We fly on, through the blank, featureless void, hoping for a chance to find our base to land, rest and refuel. Some flights like this are short hops, others feel like endless missions into the unknown. The cloud may often seem impenetrable, but I am glad to know that I have a top-notch crew and my "kite", while a bit clapped out and past its best, is mostly dependable, and has always got me home thus far.
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