Friends and Family

By Steve Messman

All the cosmic forces have been strangely aligned recently. This has not been all good for me, except that those same twisted cosmic forces have caused me to do a tremendous amount of soul searching, and remembering. Mostly, I have been remembering my family of families. Hundreds, thousands of mental pictures come to mind. I was there when both of my sons were born, and I remember both of those times with awe and immense love. I remember their first bikes, their first hikes in the woods, teaching them how to get “unlost” from the woods, shooting their first weapons, fishing, learning archery, soccer, baseball. I remember parties with their friends, afternoons spent shooting hoops, and (Yuck!) working on their cars. I really hated that, but they both loved it. My sons are older now. I remember the days they moved out, the quietness of our house, their weddings, their first homes, and their kids, my grandkids. Memories are a wonderful thing. We should make lots of them. My grandkids taught me that.

But, as I said, my sons are gone now, busy with their own homes, families, careers. I on the other hand, seem to have found a strangely similar replacement. That was never more obvious than one recent weekend when our paragliding club (the Rainier Paragliding Club, www.rainierparaglidingclub.org) hosted one of its several annual events. On this evening, we sat around the campfire deep into the evening, all 38 of us. In that group of mostly pilots were many significant others, and even more children from little pacifier suckers to 12 year olds. Remarkably in that weekend, we were nothing less than a family, doing what families do: reminiscing, recalling past memories, and building new ones. Our time around the campfire gave the appearance of a tribal meeting. One elder recalled some harrowing event in his flying life. Hands took the shape of a paraglider. Graceful arcs made their way near imagined clouds. The graceful flight of glowing hands was replaced by the motion of sudden sink as paraglider hands fell to the earth, only to swoop back toward the heavens. The eyes of the younger children sparkled in the campfire flames; their mouths were held agape in wonder. Even the youngest pacifier sucker seemingly held intently to the story, captivated by the sounds of flickering flame, the graceful motions of flying hands, or maybe the feel of the pacifier. Another elder spoke, and then another. Each recalled some event. Each told their story. Those non pilots among us added their comments. Some brought laughter from the crowd. Some were thought provoking because of their different perspective, that being the perspective of significant other. Often the circle would go silent while the lesson was absorbed. But soon, paraglider hands would again take to the air. A new story would be in the making. They will be retold many times, those stories that hold promise of teaching. We all learned from them, and we will continue to, just as we learned from our fathers’ stories of play, of work, of survival so many years ago.

On this fine evening, we spoke of the day’s activities and of events past. We spoke of launches and flights, of air time, and of wings new and old. We spoke of landing techniques, of botched landings, of aborted launches. But the most remarkable thing of all, was that every one of us, young or adult, old adult or young adult, male or female, pilot or non pilot, each person became involved in the discussions, in the learning, in the activities of family, because that is what families do. They build memories, lots and lots of memories.

And so my memory file, the one with hundreds or even thousands of pictures, has a new folder. This one is marked “Paragliding Family.” Inside that folder are some very special memories of a different family. But the pictures are so very similar. First flights rather than first steps. First hard landing rather than first fall. I was there when Mike hit his first thermal, and when Chris went cross country for the first time. I remember being there when they took their first collapses, worked on their first new site, flew Bremer for the first time. I remember the camp fires of this weekend, and last year at Saddle. I remember Ed’s very first flight, and how he lost radio contact during that flight. I remember how nervous he was to start, and how happy he was in the end. I know that I felt his fear, his anticipation, his elation. And, I know that I will remember all of these people, these events, these memories by the hundreds, or by the thousands.

We are nothing less than family, this group of people who are so diverse. We live from Port Townsend to Camus. We range from retired to entrepreneur. We range in age from quite young to social security beneficiaries. But we have that one commonality that binds us all, holds us together, and keeps us together. We fly, we love to fly, or we love someone that loves to fly. That makes us one. That makes for wonderful memories, and that makes us family.