I stand on a giant sand dune in Nags Head, North Carolina, harnessed to
an 80-pound hang glider. I grasp the control bar at hip level in front
of me. My instructor holds on to one wing with a rope, waiting for the
perfect wind. I had anticipated this moment for months, but now I'm
scared.
When I planned this hang gliding lesson, it was easy to be brave. A few
clicks on the website and I was booked. I had always dreamed—literally
dreamed—of flying. Waking up, I'd remember gliding effortlessly, leaning
instinctively to the side to turn, aiming my body up to soar. In my
dreams I already knew how to fly. I was a natural. I wanted that feeling
when I was awake. A hang gliding lesson on soft, forgiving sand seemed a
way to experience flight without much risk.
I envisioned myself, lean, streamlined, flying over the sand. But lean
was the problem. I intended to lose weight—15 pounds, I decided
optimistically—before the lesson. The lighter I was, the farther I'd
fly. It was the perfect incentive to take off weight that I needed to
lose anyway. I had plenty of time to do it, and a stronger motivation
than I'd had in years. But, somehow, I didn't.
Now, waiting on the hot dune, I regret every bowl of ice cream, every
floppy slice of pizza. I beat myself up over yet another failure to lose
weight. If I couldn't do it this time, would I ever be able to? And
more immediately, would my weight make me nose-dive into the side of the
hill, like (ouch!) the student I'd just seen? The physics seem simple
and unforgiving to me. Heavier objects are harder to get off the ground.
I can't reason away gravity.
But when I ask the instructor, a compact, dark-haired woman named
Andrea, "Why didn't he fly?" Andrea tells me that he stopped running too
soon. He thought he was in flight, extended his legs behind him, and
fell flat on the sand. He hadn't built up enough speed. It wasn't his
size so much as his timing. She tells me to keep running until I pull
the bar under my chin. She'll tell me when.
And the woman who'd had a pretty good flight, then crash-landed? She
hadn't pushed the control bar of the hang glider up—they call it
"flare"—when it was time to land on her feet.
I ask question after question. When do my legs go behind me? Where do I
look? What do I do if the glider suddenly gets too high? Andrea,
standing next to me, holding the glider rope, gives each one a detailed
answer, and I file it away. Flying is much more complicated than in my
dreams.
I can feel the heat of the sand through the soles of my shoes. I can't
wipe the sweat from my neck because I'm holding on to the control bar.
Finally she smiles.
"Ready?"
"I guess so."
"Clear!"
I pull the bar down against my hips, hold it tight, and run. With the
awkward glider, the wind blowing against me, and sand filling my
sneakers, it's more like a waddle, but I take the longest strides I can.
The instructor runs alongside me, still holding on to the rope.
"Wiggle your fingers," she says. "Relax your hands."
I hold the bar loosely and keep running. Suddenly there's no ground
beneath my feet. I feel like Wile E. Coyote when he goes off the end of a
cliff, my legs furiously pedaling through the air.
"Pull the bar under your chin."
I do, and, as if they know what to do, as if they've been waiting my
whole life for this, my legs relax behind me. I'm horizontal! I'm
flying!
The most amazing part of
hang gliding is the weightless feeling. My regret about failing to
lose weight
temporarily vanishes. Although I'm just a few feet above the ground,
the sensation is unmistakably one I remember from dreams of flying. I
might feel heavy on land, but in the air I soar.
The bystanders at the bottom of the dune, the other hang gliders and
their instructors, the heat of the sun all fall away—there's nothing but
wind and air and my body that knows just what to do.
"Flare!" Andrea yells. I push the bar straight up with my palms, and I
float easily toward the ground until my feet are on the sand, my knees
bent. I straighten my legs into a solid landing. I grin as the
bystanders gathered around a bush on the flat sand applaud.
"Perfect!" one of them calls.
I take three more flights, some more perfect than others. My success
depends on my skill—running fast, holding the bar correctly, pulling it
in, pushing it out, relaxing my fingers—and not the shape of my body.
Back on earth, I know I still have to lose weight. But when it feels
impossible, I'll think about how my body, as imperfect as it is, was
healthy and strong enough to control the glider, to lift me above the
sand. And I'll have this to remember and to sustain my spirit:
gliding over the dune, my body supported by the wind. Weightless.
More Top Stories
My Mother, Learning to Live
I was born on an even keel. Family lore says I never cried, even at
birth. I felt at ease on earth, in the right place. And like many
children, I took comfort in life's regularity: Every few days it rained,
the school bus came and went, and my parents were rooted in their
union.
Last year, after 44 years of marriage, my parents separated. Suddenly, I
became like the baby I'd never been. I cried. I felt deceived. Several
paranoid suspicions occurred to me, the worst of which was that my whole
identity was merely a patched-together set of behaviors designed to
keep my parents joined to each other—the repertoire of tricks of a small
but intelligent dog. In a sense, it was my first loss of self-esteem.
To me, self-esteem is not self-love. It is self-acknowledgment, as in
recognizing and accepting who you are. Recently, what has inspired me,
what has helped me take heart in the long project of getting acquainted
with myself, is to see my mother—a 68-year-old woman—newly single. She
spent the first ten years of her life as a war refugee, but perhaps
harder than that, at the end of it all, is going to the movies alone.
She is learning to live without the safety of old assumptions.
Self-esteem comes quietly, like the truth.
Amity Gaige teaches at Mt. Holyoke College. Her second novel, The Folded World (Other Press), was published in May 2007.
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