Losing Sight of Love (standard:romance, 1610 words)
Author: KShaw	Added: Aug 17 2005	Views/Reads: 3553/2271	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
There's no telling when love will come, maybe just at the point where love is let go.

Click here to read the first 75 lines of the story

I slightly increase the trim. Daydreaming and flying aren't good
companions. 

We first met twenty years ago. I suppose I could argue that I'd been
looking for her, but in reality she found me. I saw her as only a few 
ever had, lying at rest under a sinking sun after three days of sailing 
through storm torn skies, when lightning was so sharp it stitched 
clouds together. I've seen beauty few have been privileged to see,  
seen the sensual ‘Kiss' of Rodin, the Alpine Clematis bending in the 
mountain winds, a mermaid on a rock, but I never saw such beauty as I 
saw that day. I've prayed for her many times since. I've prayed for her 
life. I always knew that she would find me, no clock needed to remind 
me that it would happen. I planned on it, worked it out, hid in plain 
sight every day, bobbing like a cork on each and every ocean knowing 
she would one day pass by that way or this, come along, go ahead, pause 
in moving to here, or somewhere; near or far it did not matter. She 
would arrive. She kept my empty heart alive and thriving in the clatter 
of time, hoping she would one day see me, and not turn away. But turn 
away she did, and turn again she will. Just let me, one more time, 
touch her heart. She unraveled the puzzle of life for me, kept me whole 
and safe and driving on toward this day. Then, when the evenings, like 
forever, started fleeting, going fast, I can always see her at some 
distance, disappearing in the mist. Offering a wave I'll never forget. 

The instruction is concise in my ears. 

“Cessna G-O-L turn heading 32.5. Contact Bay Area Approach for request
to transition.” 

Another short dial up. Below me the Bay looks magnificent. Oakland
International east side and San Francisco International on the west 
side. 

“Bay Approach, Cessna G-O-L is type Cessna 425, five miles south west of
Palo Alto at 6000. Request transition through Bravo airspace.” 

“Bay Approach. Squawk 0512.” 

Another switch of dial, identifying my airplane in the skies above San
Francisco Bay. A check of my watch. Fifteen minutes to descent. 

I once thought I'd never find myself, or find a place where I could
begin trying. I traveled in hope, looking everywhere, wanting to find 
more than a memory. I traveled and as I traveled I wrote; a serenade or 
two for those who got me through the fearful midnights; sonatas for 
faces that time erases, but does not forget, a double wind concerto for 
the wind itself; that could have blown me anywhere, but didn't. I 
dropped some poems in the laps of strangers, even laps I knew, but this 
music, these notes and half notes planted long ago were saved knowing 
she would find me. The strongholds, the havens that proved wanting, the 
lessons learned, prizes earned, but not always given. The paths I 
paved, the paths unpaved, taking me to town and back, to Greece in my 
dreams, and in reality. To far shore, to near field, to streets between 
and always I have sought her out; on yellow days in yellowed pages, 
through rages of the mind, I never started out on a trip without her, 
for she has never left my head or heart. 

I'm close, time to announce my position to Traffic Control. Petaluma is
a municipal airport, a towerless airport, single runway. 

“Traffic: Cessna G-O-L is eighteen miles southeast at 4,900, inbound to
land runway 11, 069.” 

I continue to keep Traffic control aware of my position. With five miles
to go I'm nicely on the glide path, descending at five hundred feet per 
minute, at 140 knots. I slow the airplane down with ten degree of 
flaps. 

“Traffic: Cessna G-O-L is downwind to land runway 11.069” 

Two more turns and we're home. I extend the undercarriage; pull another
ten degree of flap. Reduce speed to 110 knots and turn the airplane 
into a twenty degree left turn. 

“Traffic: Cessna G-O-L is on crosswind leg.” 

I keep thinking my luck has to run out; that I'll get stuck behind a
huge truck heading up the coast road. With luck, and God willing, 
she'll still be there. 

“Traffic: Cessna G-O-L is on base.” 

Forty degree of flap, lining up the airplane's nose to the centre line,
a slight change in attitude and the wheels touch down. Perfect. 

“Traffic: Cessna G-O-L down at 11.33. Good day.” 

Taxiing toward the concourse I can see two old buddies waiting for me
out side the clubhouse.  I'll apologize as I run by and explain later. 

By the time I reach Bodega Bay I'm looking all the time. 

It was the kind of call that left me in no doubt. “You have to come
home, right now, okay, hurry. She's alone as far as I can tell, I don't 
know. Do you want the dinghy got ready?” 

Winding down the roads to my home my eyes are focused out there,
searching for a sign, keeping fingers crossed and heart racing. I don't 
turn into the drive, but head on down the cliff road to the waters 
edge. A woman waits, more beautiful than sunset. She's holding a wet 
suit, snorkel, and face mask. Somehow she has managed to offload the 
dinghy by herself to the waters edge. 

“What do you think?” I asked, tearing off my sweater. 

“It's been half an hour since I last saw her, I don't know. Maybe. Go
look. She was off the Rock when I saw her, about half a mile.” 

With wet suit unzipped, I hastily push out into the waves; and pull hard
on the engine cord. The engine bites into life and chatters noisily as 
I bounce hard over the waves. 

Is this it? Is this what I've become? I've left the woman I love
standing on the shore. To do what? Watch for a whale sighting? But 
maybe it's her, that same whale, that massive ninety ton beauty, with 
her half ton heart. Maybe it isn't the same whale, just a ‘loner' 
passing by. I look back and see my wife standing on the shoreline, her 
skirt billowing, her hair flying. Maybe the beauty I'm in search of 
never existed, maybe she stands on the shore, praying for me to find 
what it is I'm hoping for. But she is what I hoped for; she has the 
heart of a whale. I turn the dinghy around, heading toward shore. Maybe 
the whale stayed, maybe not, if she passed by I'm glad, but the day is 
still young, and I have a woman to hug. This is our time. 


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