Tatiana Varela

Silence. Of the purest and wildest nature, so impalpable a concept, that its occurrence leaves me breathless—the speech and thought stunned out of me. I am no more than an oval body and a pair of warp-less, white wings, gliding through empty winds, because the fear and nerves they clouded me with had been whirled away with the gentle rising of the glider. The occasional stutter of the glider as it murmures its passage through the ever-shifting sky is caused by spontaneous currents tickling the underside of a wing, sometimes pushing the wingtip down, as though forcing it to look down on the green skin of the earth, scars and scabs of gray, brown, and white dots of a nearby neighborhood nocent on nature’s portrait.
I snap out of my trance. The gliding instructor is speaking to me as the wind pulls a wing down, compelling us to turn. The plastic bubble separates me from the mass of swirling air atop the tiny paved T of the airport.
“Don’t let us go down as far next time.” He warns.
I nod and grab the joystick encased in hard plastic and feel as the wings and I are one, purposefully evading the turbulence, keeping us level and smooth in flight. I feel confident and safe, a beautiful, unforgettable feeling. If there was a way to share this feeling with the world, I would do it without hesitation, because anyone deserves to feel the wondrousness of beauty.
Time seems to flurry by in torrents. Suddenly time is up; we have to go back down. I feel as though I must be ripped away from the air and skies, stripped of the deep and endless blue forever ingrained in the back of my mind. My consciousness is attached to this structure, this sailing metal body, so aerodynamically elegant. I pause to peer once more through the plastic window taking a mental picture, and when I do, my moments mix making my mind move swiftly through the flurries and torrents of time, as all the instants I’ve taken to capture a certain charming detail come back to me. I remember endless landscapes lazily stretching out before me as though they don’t mind being astounding. I remember the unconcealed joy emanated in my sister’s smile as she takes the chocolate chip cookies my mother used to always bring us on long plane rides. I remember the marveling fascination that exhilarating take-offs have always incited in me, as the forces work their magic to lift us off the face of the earth. Most of all though, I remember finally being in the skies, a million snapshots of rolling hills, countless calico colors contained in a field of trees, seas of clouds floating endlessly underneath us. Then, I remember having the controls, willing the plane a certain way, feeling it meld with my thoughts, responding with some hesitation. Our relationship had always been a bit one-sided as I had to push, sometimes forcefully against the commanding wind that seemed to will the plane to do as it wished, until now—the culmination of all of these experiences, carried in that single breathtaking second.
Silence. In this delicate, unbreakable silence, I understand. I understand why I love flying. It’s simply beautiful, in a way that uplifts all other beauty from every nook and cranny, even where most think there is none. Even the dark—nothingness—can be mesmerizingly beautiful. There is always beauty, and I recognize that I have the power to see it.
As we descend, the curling winds, playful and powerful, part the way down to the runway. Inklings of nostalgia trickle into the exhilaration of the landing, because I know this will soon be over.
“Let’s land it together,” the gliding instructor says. He’s been there with me the entire time.
I obey, taking the joystick and again feeling the wings under me, and the winds under them. The glider is so aerodynamic, that it takes two huge arching curves to bring us down, the runway looming ahead. It stretches out in front of me, all the perspective lines seeming to end at the end of the runway, the end of it all. I once again feel it, a twinge of desperate anguish, just a taste of what it will soon be, because I know that once school starts, I won’t have time to come spend with the wind and the clouds.
We’ve continued the descent. The instructor guides me, adjusting our path to the runway. I expect a harsh jolt as we touch the ground as it sometimes happens with motored planes when the wind is too strong, or the landing is a bit late, or early. No jolt comes, and with the utmost decency, the glider seems to set us on the ground, the bumps from the grass runway sailing smoothly beneath the wheels. This lack of a jolt is reflective, I realize, of my mindset when we land. I feel as though I am back in the real world because up there, it’s too beautiful to be real, but I’m wrong. There is no harsh transition back to reality because it’s all real, and the beauty recognized up there can be recognized down here too. You just need the power to see it, and recognize it. I’ve taken the wonder in my eyes that seemed to line the clouds with silver and kept it with me. I think this as slowly the glider tips, landing on the left wingtip, and the long wistful grass uncut next to the runway, transforms into beaming sunlit grass waving at me in salute. We’ve stopped rolling, and as we wait for everyone on the ground to come over and take us out of the encasing plastic bubble, there is a calm, beautiful, silence.