Bill Steuber writes:

I wrote this a number of years ago after my first soaring flight
in wonder winds from a place called Soboba in Hemet, CA. For those of you
working towards your H2 or maybe just your first hour flight keep working at it.
The effort is worth it. When it happens nothing will be the same

I find myself sitting at my desk at work and getting nothing done. I find myself
driving in my car only to wake up and not know how I got to my destination or
why I was going there in the first place. I am here, but I am not. I am lost.
Something has happened to me you see; something deep and profound.

When I was a child, I would climb this giant tree in the woods, so high I could
see the ocean, and dream I could fly there. I thought, “This must be like
flying,” but it wasn't. As a teenager, I flew a Cessna all by myself, spending
hours in that worn, leather seat, thinking, “This must be like flying,” but it
wasn't. I later went on to become a military pilot and from that glassed-in
C-130 cockpit, I thought, “This must be like flying,” but it wasn't.

Last weekend, I rode through the desert in the back of a truck, into the back
roads of the high desert, where abandoned cars lay in ditches like casualties of
war. Old appliances stood out like exclamation points saying, "You are in the
middle of nowhere!" Yet, this day had a different feel to it, like something
special could happen.

I sat on the edge of a cliff overlooking the flat desert rising up to meet Mount
San Jacinto. The thick grass in front of me waved in homage to the mountain as
the remnant sun generated thermals that kissed the mountain's shoulders like a
lover. The magic started as I walked to the edge and the wind pushed against me.
The sun descended on her glide slope into the Pacific and she cast us the last
of her ocean winds. The dry desert air ran to meet her and they collapsed into
one another. With nothing more than cloth and courage, I stepped off into their
roiling embrace and was carried skyward.

I danced between the ocean’s breath and the mountain’s caress, pushed higher and
higher until I was nothing more than a spectator to the lovers’ quarrel of air.
Others joined me with their wings of courage and together we danced and circled
like children until we couldn't stand up and fell down laughing. Finally,
finally, I thought to myself, “This is flying.” And it was.

An hour of time passed and then some more and yet a little more; the ticking of
clocks lost its meaning. I pulled in towards home as the shadows ate up the
warmth. I descended into the growing darkness and then right before I touched
down, she came to me and pulled me up again, spinning me higher and higher for
one last dance. The houses below filled with light and cars snaked on unseen
roads below, oblivious to my silent, soaring magic.

I tilted my cloth for the stadium lights of an unused sports field. I descended
once again to my place here amongst the walking and said goodbye to the magic.
She let me go and set me down gently in the sand. The benign sounds of normality
once again came back into focus; a dog barking, the sound of traffic, laughter
from a house I had flown over. Then it was over. The magic stopped and now I sit
here once again, earthbound.

Something happened up there. I am not the same. I was blessed and rode the wind
longer than I had ever dreamed possible. Like a holy man who has seen the truth,
I am now once again walking amongst the unenlightened trying to explain it. They
don't understand me. They can't fathom why my gaze is always skyward and my head
and heart are still soaring in the clouds.