When an aviator checks the winds before a flight, sometimes the result is, “light and variable.” This means that there is no appreciable wind from any single direction. The winds tend to flit around this way and that, and they may flow differently at different altitudes.
This past week, we celebrated a bunch of things with a ride in a hot air balloon. It is something I have always wanted to do, and my Mother’s Day / birthday present was a ride in a balloon during the Teton Valley Balloon Festival on my son’s birthday, which also happens to be the 4th of July. It was a festive day of celebration in our very favorite place.
The morning we launched, the winds were “light and variable,” and as we floated around the Teton Valley, I felt the peaceful buoyancy of floating above the ground in a basket suspended by a massive balloon. It’s quite magical. We moved slowly, our direction in the hands of the wind. Suspended like this, at the mercy of air currents, I couldn’t help feeling that this balloon experience represented my current place in life.
These past two weeks in particular have felt light and variable. I am going where the wind takes me, not trying to pull too hard in any one direction. In doing so, I have been able to be present as my boys turned 8 and 11 and challenge myself on my bike with new race distances and technical terrain. I have spent valuable time with friends and explored new places without strict timelines. It’s also meant that I’ve spent less time behind my computer writing about how I am feeling, what I am doing, where I am headed. I have a dozen or so half-written posts on topics ranging from re-reading my favorite book, to what it feels like to drive in the open expanse of the American West. But before I can pull any of these ideas together into publishable coherency, the wind has taken me, and I am off in a different direction.
I learned this week, that in a hot air balloon, light and variable winds significantly impact where you will land. With a stronger breeze, you are headed in a known direction, and from the moment you take off, the chase vehicle is charting your path as closely as possible along navigable roadways below. There is a certainty to this. But with light and variable winds, you sort of meander. At 200 feet, we floated east, at 400 we traveled back to the west and at 700 feet, we migrated south. In such winds, you don’t really know where you will touch down. Ultimately, we landed in a field about 400 yards from where we had taken off.
Lately, I feel like I have been floating around a bit like this. I have no strong wind current pulling me toward my next thing. There is no certainty. Instead, I am simply floating here and there. In a society where I have been conditioned to always have goals and a clear path to travel in pursuit of those goals, traveling this way feels simultaneously freeing and frustrating. I am not going in any one particular direction, yet it feels nice to drift. It makes me think of a recurring dream I have where I can fly - bounding from one tall building or mountain to the next as I catch winds aloft - only coming down when I find the next place to bound from.
Right now, I feel ungrounded but not aimless. I am floating in a basket tethered to a balloon. My family is with me and we are in this together. While I am not trying to go any one direction, I am very curious about where I will land. Do I come down close to where I started, or do I stay up long enough so the winds pick up and I catch a stronger breeze to a new place all together?
I don’t yet know where these light and variable winds will take me, but I do know that I am not quite ready to come down.
This one really resonated Kristi. And very beautifully written
I love when I feel I know the direction the”winds” take me to a place I never expected to be but the journey was just as rewarding. It was nice seeing you this morning.