“To Live’s To Fly” is a 1971 song by Fort Worth legend Townes Van Zandt that perfectly captures either absolute freedom or complete hopelessness, depending on who you ask. The title struck me as I battled my most intense phobia. For years, I had been stuck at a bifurcation of fate in my own mind. Hearing this song title forced me to take a deep breath and faithfully delve into its message for me.
Reading a lot about music and history, I learned that Van Zandt was buried in Dido Cemetery in a little town about 30 minutes northwest of Fort Worth called Pecan Acres. I don’t like wasting time, and since I had some to spend, I used it to go pay my respects to his music and thank him for passing his talents on to fellow legends like Bob Dylan and Norah Jones and music lovers alike.
The cemetery is small but well-kept, so finding him was easy. I sat with him a while, mesmerized by the etching of a song title on his headstone: “To Live’s To Fly.”
Anyone who’s known me long enough knows I have struggled with a fear of flying all my adult life. I was an exchange student in Japan in college, which baffles them. How did I pull that off? I had nothing to lose at that time and everything to gain. As you grow older, you grow more cautious. As you gain people and things in this life that you don’t want to lose, you take fewer risks. I love to travel and continue to, but in my own way. Road trips, train trips, even ships. I made it to Europe and back, hitting seven countries with no planes. Between a car, a cruise ship, trains, and a cargo ship, you’d be surprised what alternatives open-mindedness will lead to. There’s always a way.
But I began to tire of making these dreams come true the hard way. I had to find a way to work through this fear that was stealing my adventurous spirit.
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A coworker at the time was once a flight instructor. He wanted to get back in the game of instructing, and I needed to gain understanding of the science of flight, hoping it would ease my anxieties. So once a week after work, he’d stay with me, and we’d work out calculations about lift and drag, weight limits, mapping courses, and taking quizzes straight from the manual. Several months later, I went to the flight school in Grand Prairie and took the ground school aviation test. I passed.
I had no interest in being a pilot. I just wanted the knowledge because as the old cartoons say, “Knowledge is power.” I was hoping it gave me the power to take my wanderlust back.
Photo By Kena Sosa
But I was still stuck. I won a trip to Taos, New Mexico, on a local radio program to do an archeological dig. It was a lifelong dream for me. They paid for the ticket and accommodations and gave me a small spending stipend. I panicked the night before and got a ticket on the Greyhound bus instead. I tried to let myself off the hook because it’s not like I paid for it, so I shouldn’t be so upset at myself. But I was. I failed myself.
A friend of mine moved to Mexico a few years later. It was time for me to “dust off my wings” as Townes says and pay her a visit. It was my first flight in more than six years. Waiting did not help. It only built up my nerves.
Despite getting delayed by weather just before arriving in Mexico City and being diverted to an airport I had never heard of, plus my two-and-a-half-hour flight turning into an eight-hour tour, I handled it with grace. I was so proud of myself for giving in and letting go that I rewarded myself with a ticket to Peru that November to visit Machu Picchu. These are the things that fear was stealing from me, life experiences. Peru was a new level of challenge. I flew out of DFW to Atlanta, then Atlanta to Lima and Lima to Cuzco. And, wow, I had to pat myself on the back. I was getting good at this.
As my reward for doing so well going to Peru, I re-rewarded myself by taking my sons to London that same summer. The flight was nine hours direct. It was smooth, but of course the duration had my head spinning.
It felt like my life had been returned to me on a golden platter for me to savor once again. However, my credit card disagreed, and I put more rewards on hold temporarily.
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Recovering from working on myself, I spent the next few months challenging myself in new ways. I approached job opportunities I wasn’t confident in before. More recently, I even held an albino python on my lap and made sure my choices were worthy of personal valor.
Then this past summer, my son was awarded a seat to a three-week intensive course in Taiwan. I had promised him to ease his own concerns about getting homesick that I would visit. That was before he got it, though, as my other son pointed out. Now he would expect me to fulfill my promise. I hadn’t been to Asia since my first flight halfway around the world. Could I do it?
I bought the tickets. I paid and knew I’d be paying for a while. The flight was 15.5 hours direct from Houston to Taipei, Taiwan. I’ll admit I was doing mental loops and losing it after about eight hours but not from fear, just from antsyness and boredom. My other son was, too. I started to actually feel normal.
When we returned home, I wondered if I was finally ready for the ultimate test: skydiving. I had given in to the peer pressure of buying a dive for a friend’s birthday. I was sure the friend would throw me out of the plane if I refused and would do it anyway, then be pleased with myself at the end of it after crying and maybe peeing myself, but it would still count.
The event had to be postponed due to weather, and there were no refunds. They rescheduled but for a day I couldn’t make it. So, I have the voucher indefinitely with no expiration. I have scheduled and rescheduled it multiple times and kept giving myself an out. Once I even went and watched everything in action to see if that was the day. It was gorgeous out and no wind. It was perfect. And there were spots in the next group. But when it was time to sign the waiver, I said I needed something from my car. And I did. I needed to get out of there fast. Not my proudest moment. I felt like I had reversed course on all my progress.
I look up at the sky a lot. It is so immensely beautiful. It reminds me of being present. The clouds and their formations at the coordinates where you stand or sit are only exactly like that in that space and time and location that once. It is a grounding thought. It also reminds me that, like Townes says, we are “waiting around to die.”
I like to fill the time in my day with life. I’m not a very patient person, maybe because I’m hyperaware of that waiting. I’d rather wander, explore and learn, and ponder. My mind never really shuts off. It can be overwhelming sometimes. I gazed upon the Townes Van Zandt mural at Acme Distilling Company in Fort Worth and followed his eyeline to the railroad tracks in the distance. There is always more road to cover, even when one road ends.
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Townes liked to tell a story about digging up Blaze Foley’s grave. The fellow musician and friend had Townes’ guitar in his possession at death. All of Foley’s belongings went to a pawn shop, and he was buried with the tag to retrieve them. This is a story told often by Townes, but today’s “pics or it didn’t happen” way of proving tall tales is useless in this case. The story says that Townes had dug up Blaze to get the pawn ticket and reclaim his guitar.
Pondering on how far Townes would dig to recover his tool of transmuting pain to music, I began to wonder about my own motivation. Digging deep into myself, I questioned what I was aiming for by forcing myself to skydive. Did I actually want to? Do I have to? Is it really a big deal if I don’t? If my whole point was to conquer my fear of flying, I did do that on my way to Mexico, Peru, the U.K., and Taiwan. Skydiving isn’t flying. It’s falling gracefully. So, really, what I discovered is that I have been courageous and made tidal waves of growth on the one fear that was literally holding me back from joy. And I unlocked a new one, the fear of falling.
After flinging some teaspoons full of dirt in the hole I was digging for myself, I came to the conclusion that I may miss out on some fantastic photos, but I prefer my gravity-riddled life as it is now. It is a wonderful one. And that is good enough for me.
So, what about this pricey dive? It may not be my dream, but it is one for many people and out of reach for any number of reasons. I should use it to fly in my own way, by giving it to someone who will live their greatest fantasies in that moment. I found a local organization called My Final Wish which grants all kinds of dreams for ailing adults. Surely, someone has been dreaming of this, and I could make it happen for them.
Within hours I got a reply to my email. They were happy to report that it would be a welcome gift and sure to bring smiles to someone’s face. Maybe I am a coward, or maybe I just realized that it is brave to say that’s not for me. And even if I am a coward, I am a generous one who lives a full life, and that’s living enough for me.
