Must Be Present to Fly

That was a helluva Play Day.

May 17, 2021

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As most of you know, I’ve been paying a lot of attention to the importance of Play over this past month, both in this space and on my radio show / podcast, This Show Is All About You. I’ve strongly suggested that it is both a lost art for adults, and a still-underappreciated necessity for kids. At its best--when it is spontaneous, open-ended, creative, flexible, and child-controlled--Play develops life skills more than just about any other activity. It literally fires up and supercharges brain development, like leafy greens do for our guts and overall body health. 

Since I’ve been focused on it all month, I’m seeing Play everywhere around me, and have been intentional in cultivating Play for myself. And, this past weekend, I saw it everywhere I looked and went. 

I was down in Portland, Oregon for my job as Strategic Planning Director for Airway Science for Kids (ASK), helping out with the organization’s first two in-person events in well over a year. The first event was a Teacher Appreciation event for local teachers at the ASK headquarters building, the second a kind of “Fly Day” where local private pilots took kids who’d never flown in private planes on free flights around the drop-dead gorgeous Oregon countryside (and yesterday was what locals call a “Five Mountain Day,” when Mounts Hood, St. Helens, Adams, Jefferson and the northernmost peak of the “Three Sisters”  are all clearly visible from the air - a range of over two hundred miles). 

At both events, I saw Play all over the place, especially (and not surprisingly) with the kids in attendance. At the teacher event, one seven-year old girl mastered the indoor drone racing course (yes, it is as cool as it sounds) faster than any of the adults. By the end of the night, she was using the video game style controller to take the small drone (about the size of a Kraft single slice of cheese) through flips and loops. She also learned how to take off, fly, and land a Cessna 172 on one of the ASK flight simulators, build a small metal model plane, and about ten other activities. She was fully invested  - with a giant smile on her face the entire time - for the duration of the three-hour event. Imagine what all that Play was building in her young brain.. 

The next day, thirty-one kids took their first flights in those private planes, and literally NONE of them climbed out of the cockpit without a giant grin on their face. Many hopped and bounded about afterwards, talking with us and their families about everything they’d seen and experienced, and how they wanted to do it again. Many asked what other things they could do, which led to some of them signing up for aviation summer camps and a number of families talking with us about the aviation / aerospace career pathways that ASK helps facilitate. I met kids with dreams of becoming astronauts, commercial airline pilots, and stunt pilots, and talked with others who just loved the feeling of being in the air. One kid even commented how different everything around her seemed after seeing the world from above for the first time. 

Seeing dreams ignite for kids through fun and play is rewarding in and of itself, but I also noticed for the first time another crucial ingredient of Play as I watched those kids this weekend: 

Presence. Being Present. Being wholly In the Moment. 

None of those kids, when engaged in the Play that came with the events of the weekend, were focused on anything but the moment, on anything but what they were doing. In that state, they were fully engaged with all that makes Play so beneficial - creating possibilities, learning to master skills, face challenges and grow from them, push themselves into new directions resulting in new perspectives. 

Powerful stuff through and through. And watching them do all that helped me do the same, even now. 

Flying is really that way - to do it well, one has to be present for every part, for every step. To not be present is to risk missing a step, which risks everything. Pilots I talk to do their best to articulate that state of being, and few use the term “present,” but that is exactly what it is. 

Being present not only keeps a pilot and passengers safe, but also allows for the full experience of flight to be enjoyed and feed whatever dreams and decisions come from it. When we put aside our past and future, the benefits of the present and play come to the forefront, which leads to kids jumping out of the cockpit with a better sense of themselves and of what they want to do and be. At least if this past weekend was any indicator. 

I related a lot to their joy - I felt it myself as a young kid watching jumbo jets take off for the mainland every day from where I lived in Hawaii. My folks would drive me up to the edge of the fence line along the primary runway, and I’d stand on the hood of the car for a better view of those 747s and DC-10s roaring into the sky. It got me thinking of so many other things that stretched my tiny kid world outward and upward - what was the rest of the world like? Where were all those passengers going? How did those planes stay aloft and safe for hours and hours and hours, over and over again? If that’s possible, what else could be? Could I be a part of that? 

That I gave up on my dream of being a pilot in high school isn’t really the point (another story for another day) - my love of airplanes and flight and anything related to it spoked out into all areas of my life in the years since. My love of history, my fiction writing, my current employment, my enjoyment in helping kids, and so much more about me has been fed and buffeted by my childhood wonder, fascination, and yes, PLAY, surrounding aviation. 

It’s not the only area of Play where childhood fed my adulthood, by any means. And, unlike other issues I developed as an adult, none of my childhood Play areas of exploration have ever hurt me. 

Ever. 

Wow. That point only just hit me as I wrote it, and it has me staggering and laughing a bit. That tells me that Play is more than just Play - it’s a kind of superpower, an elixir for growth and health that cannot be replicated by anything or anyone else. It’s foundational for so much of what can and should be strong and driving in us as adults. 

It’s something I need to reflect on a bit more, but there you have it. Play is Awesome, whether with drones or airplanes or something else. 

And for Play to work its magic, we have to be fully present. It sounds so simple (and it is), but we seem to forget about it more and more as time goes by, then dismiss its importance as the price for “adulting.” 

Maybe we just need more “childing”, which means more Play. 

So, more flying. Or whatever it might be. 

More on this next week, after I head to Colorado to visit another budding pilot - and after I get this REO Speedwagon song out of my head. 

Chins Up, Everyone. 

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Thanks for reading My Sunday Poem. Here are some important updates from my past week:

Soul Book of the Week: High Achiever by Tiffany Jenkins

Book On My Nightstand: Icebound: Shipwrecked at the Edge of the World by Andrea Pitzer

Best Show / Movie I Watched: Nobody. It’s like watching your lame neighbor turn into John Wick.

Strongest Earworm Song: “Irish Heartbeat” by Van Morrison / Mark Knopfler

Best Triathlon Training Moment: Pounding out my fastest 30 mile ride yet.

Toughest Triathlon Training Moment: Discovering leg muscles I never knew I had.

Favorite Hangout Shirt of the Week: The Hiroshima Carp one. Because Japanese baseball.

Coolest Thing of the Week: Watching kids fly in an airplane for the first time.

Thing I Know Now That I Didn’t Last Week: What a “Five Mountain Day” is.

Most Helpful Perspective / Advice of the Week: “Only Johnny Cash could wear all black”

Current Wanderlust List: 1) California Still; 2) Japan; 3) An all-inclusive resort anywhere