Last Sunday we loaded up the van and drove west for a few hours on the harrowing highway that is I-10, to settle into a hotel where we’ll be staying for a month.
At least, we think it’ll be about a month. It could be less, or might turn out to be more. Or perhaps we’ll have to go back and forth a bunch. Then again, maybe we won’t. It’s impossible to say.
I guess “settled” might be too strong a word.
Like everything with aviation, all is uncertain until it’s not, and will likely change a hundred times before it’s over. This is my life. Write any “plans” on the calendar with pencil — that’s what I have learned.
I jokingly call my husband Jason by his pet name, Sees What Happens, because whenever I try to nail down a plan with him, his go-to answer is almost always, “We’ll just have to see what happens.”
Yes, P-L-A-N is a four letter word in our household. Schedules remain fluid, and the wife of a pilot must be steadfast in her willingness to live an unsteady life. These aviators are a different breed, I am here to tell you. Their heads are in the clouds, and their feet barely touch the ground.
But it’s not all on Jason.
Airlines and some of the things that rule them — weather, maintenance, and humans — don’t seem to specialize in guarantees about much of anything, especially when it comes to timelines.
So for now, going with what we know, or think we know, we brought a month’s worth of essentials — some things to make it a bit easier and help the time pass more joyfully. This includes: a guitar, a fiddle, a mandolin, a Vitamix, an Instapot and other kitchen equipment, a bicycle, art supplies, writing implements, several novels, medicines, herbs, tons of tea and other creature comforts, swimsuits, sun screen, a dog, and of course, Jason’s stack of study materials.
Traveling light is not what we do. The Clampetts ride again.
We’re here so my husband can go through Captain upgrade training.
What does that mean?
Jason’s been flying from the right side of the jet, and now he’ll be learning to fly from the left. At the completion of this training, his title will shift from First Officer to Captain. Higher status means higher pay, but it’s a pretty hot seat. Heavier are the shoulders that wear four stripes instead of three.
But to achieve this goal, first he has to cram his head full of numbers, memorize calls and flows, and know all the FAA rules and regulations down pat. He must be able to recite his minimums, maximums, V-speeds, and a bunch of other stuff I could never understand, let alone commit to memory. He’ll spend most of the month getting tossed around in a full-motion simulator at weird hours. And scariest of all, he’ll have to pass a lot of exams— written and oral — and a series of high-stakes check rides.
It’s basically rocket science.
That’s why I’m here, showing up to support and comfort him while he walks through the fire. It’s what we do in the name of love. I’ve done it before, as has he. For the last few months he’s stood by me during my hard thing, and made taking care of me after a major surgery his top priority. It feels good being in each other’s corners.
As I write this, I’ve just seen him off for his first day of “school.” I filled his belly with brain food and packed him a good lunch (my primary role as his pit crew), knowing that he has to pass a make-it-or-break it-test today. He’ll be getting quizzed on the knowledge and memory items from the computer-based training he’s already been doing at home for the last month in anticipation of this big event.
By “at home,” what I really mean is: on airplanes and in hotel rooms when he’s been traveling. And by “the last month” what I really mean is: every minute except for the multiple days he spent working at 37,000 feet, the week we were in Juneau at a music festival, and the several days it took to help his dad fly a Cessna 180 from Alaska to Texas.
He got a little jittery last night, and that’s understandable. If he doesn’t make the cut, we’ll have to load this clown car back up, head home, and look for a new job.
But I know that won’t happen. Jason is whip-smart. If for some reason his brain fails him, his stubborn determination will not. I believe in him; he has pluck.
Meanwhile, since I’m still coming through my major ordeal, I’m going to look at this hotel stay as something of a healing retreat. Other than cooking and walking Mabel, my only job is to take care of myself. That’s it.
We left our bigger dog with her second favorite family (her second favorite, we consistently have to remind her). Juneau hates nothing more than being cooped up. She is bred to herd cattle, after all, and those are in short supply over here at Towne Place Suites by Marriott.
Little Mabel is pretty happy to take long naps and short walk around the hotel grounds, chasing frogs, lizards and a few stray cats. I like having canine companionship. I find it very grounding. I’ve always been crazy, but it keeps me from going insane (Thank you, Waylon Jennings, for putting it so eloquently.)
We love Mabel, even if she is a pretty bad girl most of the time. The internet tried to warn us. A dachshund is stubborn and strong willed, it said. Untrainable. Sometimes we get exasperated by her devilish behavior.
“Mabel is an anarchist,” I say. “Rules were not made for her.”
“Yes, she takes after her mother,” my husband replies. I look into his eyes to see how he means this, and shining back is a reflection of myself. He’ll admit it, if a little reluctantly: we have the same wild heart.
Speaking of my untame personality, I’ve begun to identify a need to infuse more consistent routines into my life. My struggling health has forced me to acknowledge this. While structure and rigidity share a common border, and I’m not at all interested in the latter (good thing, or I’d be fighting a losing battle around here), I do think I’d benefit from keeping a steadier rhythm.
Several years back I was at a pretty crazy music-related event and people were doing drugs around me. Someone offered me acid. “Thanks, but no way!” I said. “But if you have anything that makes life seem ordinary and boring, I’d be interested in that.”
Some people are thrill seekers, looking for some excitement, but personally, I could use a little more hum-drum in my life. It’s unusual for me to feel very even-keeled on the inside, even in rare moments when everything is relatively predictable. Seeing what happens all the time does not evoke inner-calm. Pandemonium, while utterly familiar, is not helpful in promoting a parasympathetic state, and that is something I am really craving these days.
But my psychic disarray is not Jason’s fault. Though I am married to an agent of chaos (I say that lovingly), and the life we live together certainly enhances it, the terrain of the road I’ve traveled was bumpy long before it ever crossed with his.
This history, and possessing an artistic temperament are two inalienable truths about myself I’ve been learning to honor. My later forties have dawned with an important understanding: a crucial aspect of self-care is having creative outlets. It’s become essential to nurture this; my health doesn’t have a fighting chance without it. Bounce-back gets harder and harder to come by, and I am old enough now to realize that if I don’t reign in my destructive tendency to ignore my own needs, my mental and physical well-being will suffer.
While we’re (settled?) in one place for a month(ish?) without the distraction of endless household chores, I hope to lose myself in making more art. I’d like to dig deeper into my writing projects, and to practice more consistent habits as far as physical self-care goes.
Knock knock? Who’s there? Housekeeping.
But living the one-room hotel life together, that might be a challenge. I’ll have to work hard to stay in my own lane to remain anchored to these intentions. Jason’s training schedule, as it has been outlined as of now (subject to change, of course), is very inconsistent, with completely different hours that change every few days.
I’d really like for the sands beneath my feet to quit being quite so shifty, but I can only begin within. Much of the tumult in our lives has been beyond our control, but a lot is self-inflicted. It’s what comes with the territory of being interesting people pursuing dreams that require some complicated acrobatics.
We’ve been here before. I mean literally, at this same hotel. Almost two years ago, when Jason got the crazy idea in his head that he needed to fly jets, the company that hired him put us up here for three months during his new-hire training.
It’s strange to return and see the same housekeeping staff, maintenance people, and shuttle drivers that were here last time. It’s hard to fathom that, as our lives have twisted and turned and we’ve hardly ever had two days in a row that were the same, these folks have been showing up here every day, putting in carbon-copied, 40-hour weeks.
During our previous stay, we had two dogs with us, and when we first arrived we all reeled with culture shock at being uprooted from a wild place to such an urban one. This is something I didn’t want to acclimate to. I still don’t.
Back then we had no house to go back to. Forward was the only direction. We’d dissolved our life in Alaska in order to find out what would happen if we tried to transform Jason from a bush pilot into a jet pilot.
The short answer has been: live on leashes, work for The Man. The longer answer: it’s still being discovered.
I’ve used the opportunity to conduct a little experiment of my own: what would happen if I sold my herb business of 17 years and nearly everything else we owned, and tried to become a writer?
I’m not retired so much as just tired. Jason is younger than me, and more filled with a fiery ambition. That’s fine — I’ll leave him to it while I sit and write in the hotel room. I’ll hang out by the pool and submerge myself in cool water, where it’s quiet enough to hear the peaceful sound of two hundred AC units humming and five jets per minute taking off overhead.
Working for The Man has been a hard adjustment, but some of the airline perks have been amazing. We get free flight privileges, for one thing. For us, being handed this benefit has been exactly like a couple of alcoholics owning a bar.
We’ve taken multiple trips back and forth to Alaska. We’ve also visited Colorado, Utah, and Florida to see family. We’ve gotten to spend a little time in some musical places, just for fun — Nashville, Asheville, and Austin — and have been able to attend multiple fantastic music festivals. In addition to the local ones in Louisiana (there’s one every five minutes, it seems), we’ve also traveled to the Mount Airy Fiddlers Convention in North Carolina, RockyGrass in Lyons, Colorado and most recently, the Alaska Folk Festival in Juneau.
We are vagabonds disguised as an airline pilot and…whatever I am.
As with all adventures, you never know where you’ll end up. You just have to see what happens. This has certainly been true for us. When we uprooted our lives and struck out to meet the unknown, we had no idea we’d find ourselves living in Louisiana. But believing it best to try to bloom wherever we’re planted, we bought a sweet little house in Lafayette and put in a nice garden.
While we ache for our Alaska home and the beauty and kinship we know there, new parts of ourselves have been developing in this very different environment. We’ve made lots of new friends, have been learning to speak French, and get to play a lot more Cajun music now.
But it hasn’t all been glamorous. I tumbled down a hell of a rabbit hole of health problems. I’ve had to have about a billion medical tests, which led to minor, then major surgery, and I anticipate at least one more operation in the fall.
Another big change that’s been hard on us is we’ve had to get used to a ton of separation in our relationship with this new pilot job. Jason sleeps in different states more than half of the time.
I do have to give him at least a little shit about this. He says he loved the years he spent being a professional musician, except for some of the realities of so much time spent on the road.
“I got so sick of having to sleep in hotel rooms and live out of suitcases and airports.”
“Oh, I see. So you gave up the rockstar life and became a pilot. And now you sleep in hotel rooms and live out of suitcases and airports without all the fun parts.”
In the many hours of solitude my newly-shaped life contains, I’m staying true to my original goal and doing a lot of writing. This is the 94th story I’ve published here since I began this experiment in this very same hotel a couple of years ago. And I’ve begun working on a big book project — so big, sometimes I can’t bring myself to look at it for months at a time.
All in all, for having taken a huge leap of faith, we’ve landed in a pretty good situation. Though it’s been challenging in many ways, this chapter has been full of enriching experiences. We live a very privileged life, if an upended one. It’s been so full, I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
And so, for my next trick, I’m going to attempt to do the most foreign and unnatural thing yet: be boring for a month.
In the spirit of living an unusual life, I’ve been learning to play The Ballad of Old Bill. Enjoy this beautiful rendition by Pharis and Jason Romero. They live extraordinary lives in Horsefly, British Columbia, where they build banjos, raise their children, and make the world a more beautiful place.
Original collage art by the author, made from recycled magazines.
Definitely great chapter, the boring one. I myself am taking care of rabbits, geese, chickens, and ducks (scratching cat and big dog) on an isolated solar log cabin. The wind rocks the chair on the porch. It is absolutely boring and I love it. I can't wait to see the book.
As my friend Brenda Cullerton says - "elevating the mundane" is what real writers do. Welcome to the club, Stella.