Imagine you wake up on a beautiful morning in a castle somewhere. The sun is shining and a warm breeze is blowing. You have no pressure and no deadlines, plenty of money and your family is taken care of. A servant brings you breakfast and asks you what you want to do today...
Now you're supposed to take a moment and really feel your answer. I've asked this to a few people and most of the answers (that weren't "I don't know") were pretty simple things like "read books" or "sleep all day", but the whole point of the exercise is to get a feel for what your heart wants to do. Whatever your answer is, you're supposed to figure out how to do that thing, and sooner than later.
I'm sure you're on the edge of your seat wondering what my heart desired to do on a perfect day, huh? Well, when I went through the exercise, the first thing I thought of was "let's go hang gliding!"
I didn't think much of it at the time, but less than a week later, a hiking/outdoor group that I belong to (meetup.com) posted a tandem hang gliding meetup. I figured, even if it wasn't "a sign", it was at least a opportunity for me to do something that I would enjoy. I signed up, and today was the day.
A two and a half hour drive and getting up at 6AM was well worth it. No mountains there, so we get to height by being towed up by a little one-person, sport airplane. A great temperature and thin clouds at about 3000 ft, was just fine for being towed up and dropped off at 2500 ft.
It was wonderful. Very windy, but that was okay. It took about 5 minutes to climb to height, were it felt like we were attached to a big kite (essentially we were). Then, we cut loose and suddenly we went from going-up to going-down. That was a touch startling, but not bad. Then we got to steer around the sky and gracefully float down for about a 15 minute ride. The best part was when we'd pull up a little into a "stall" and then catch and start down again. It was the little butterfly-in-the-stomach feel. But the actual ride felt very safe because of the harness that we were strapped in with cradled my whole body and just made me feel like I was on a windy hammock.
And of course, it was over much too quickly.
Was it worth it? Yes. Would I do it again? I'd like for it to be closer and/or cheaper, but I certainly would love another opportunity. Simply marvelous.
