Over the years, I lived in Boulder several different times; almost as though I were Metal to its Magnetic Forces.  It's a college town, so there are bucket-loads of young people, and so many activities it can make your head spin.  In the late '60s it was a Hotbed of Hippiedom and radical politics; by the time I went back for massage school, lots of that had calmed down quite a bit.  Even fraternities and sororities (no, really) on campus were making a comeback, much to the astonishment of just about everyone.  Commerce was raging, parking spots were almost non-existent, and music was everywhere, both on the streets and in the clubs.  The city had closed off a few blocks to cars, and the pedestrians only Mall was popping with new business: restaurants, bookstores, galleries, outdoor stores, bakeries, music stores, bars, everything you could imagine, and most of it upscale now.  Lots of theater groups were putting on plays, and just about every weekend you could see a new one.  It was vital and thrilling; I couldn't get enough of it.

  I'd been living in rural areas for the past decade; I loved the quiet simplicity and bare-bones of country life, the earthy practicality of it; but mon dieu, I was culture-starved!  Once I decided to head to the big city, I decided to immerse myself in everything good I could: I'd be such a sponge the experiences might last me another decade.

  My husband had decided to stay put in the little house we were renting on the river in southwestern  Colorado; I'd be gone just under a year, and he really didn't want any part of city life again.  We figured we could pull it off; I'd come back on vacations, he'd come up to Boulder to visit, la la la... We hadn't a clue how hard it would be after a year to be married again; it was nip and tuck for awhile whether or not we would pull it off; but that's another story, and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to tell it.

  The massage school was new; I was in its second graduating class, so there were some rough edges that hadn't been filed down by time and experience, but all in all, it was great.  There was so much to learn, so many techniques, so much anatomy, physiology, and kinesiology, other languages to learn, really.  The body-mind courses were my favorites, and required lots of personal involvement to really absorb.  I often volunteered to be one of the guinea pigs, especially for the notable guest instructors.  It hammered the lessons home, and meant free psychotherapy, but there was one little hitch:  My sessions were public, sometimes witnessed by scores of students; when I look back on it, I sort of quake for myself retroactively; but back then, I figured what the hell did I have to lose but a little dignity (well...maybe a little privacy, too)?  And I'd come out stronger and healthier, with maybe a few less neuroses and issues, right?  (Chuckle away; it probably is sorta funny.) 

  Full participation at the school meant lots of classroom hours, plus clinic hours, though lots of the students ditched, and some even cheated on tests.  I wondered what the hell they were doing here if they didn't want to learn, but...some people are just like that.  

  There were even some non-compulsory field trips: once we went to an anatomy lab at a medical school in Denver; I got to hold a human brain.  My stars.  A few months earlier I'd sat in on some human dissection classes at a chiropractic school in Iowa, and got to see muscles and ligaments and nerves in person (and yes, the formaldehyde smell sticks to you wretchedly, yuk.); but here was some person's brain in my very own hands, looking for all the world like the coral named for it, endless little S-curves in the spongy tissue.  It didn't look like much from the outside, to tell the truth, given all the grand power ascribed to it. 

  On nights when I didn't have homework, or I finished it early, I'd drive to town for the night life, mainly music.  Sometimes to catch bands, other times to sing on the Boulder Mall with a friend from school.  He was from New Jersey, and had been weaned on Springstein; he played and sang even better than The Boss, and it was pretty fine for me that he liked my harmonies.

  One night I went to another musicians' party with an old friend of my husband's; he played banjo, and knew a million musicians; they were always looking for more singers, so the parties were always fun.  Charlie introduced me to Steve: he was a pilot and glider instructor!  Holy mother of god! 

  Through a friend of a friend, I had been offered a room in a house in a creepy suburb northeast of the city, and on the way to and from home and school, I passed a small municipal airport.  Often I'd park my tiny green Datsun at the side of the road and watch the sail-planes.  I'd never seen such a thing: attached by a cable, these sleek, white engineless planes would be pulled into the sky by a small single-engine plane; when the pilot determined his plane was far enough aloft, he would release the cable and go it alone.  You could almost feel the plane seeking...seeking...feeling... for updrafts that would carry it higher and higher, in ever-widening circles, and finally out of sight.  Think what that might feel like, to really be a goddam bird; to feel the bending of air beneath your wings nudging you aloft; being pulled along and through the sky by the push of air warmed by the earth below.  Ohhhhh my; the Stuff of Dreams.

  "You soar?" I begged of Steve when we were introduced.

  "I do.  I fly everything with props, but I make my money training.  We have special trainer planes with dual controls; I sit in front at first, the student sits behind me, and at some comfort point I hand over the controls."

  "Er...who can take lessons?  Can anyone, I mean...are there any requirements?"

  He laughed.  "Nope.  You interested?"  (He must have seen the drool on my chin.)  Keen observer, he was...

  I was ready to throw a damned shoe I was so excited.  We worked out a deal: massage therapy in trade for his fee, and I'd pay for the plane and airport fees; which really weren't exorbitant.

  "Call me tomorrow at the airport, and we'll set it up."

  By ten the next day we had set up a time for later that day!  (Yes; I cut a class; but you don't have to make a federal case out of it...)

  The tow plane was ready on the runway, and we hauled the glider out behind it, stretched the cable, and hooked up.  It rolled on small wheels, and was far lighter than I'd imagined.  We climbed in, he buckled me in (Oh, yeah, fasten me in real tight there, thank you.), and he fastened the canopy down.  

  Butterfly time; uh-oh; big ones...  Ms. Control-freak in a plane trusting this stranger to know what the hell he was doing; it was Surrender Dorothy time for me; if I'd been a Catholic, I would have crossed myself.  I was tempted, but I took some good deep breaths instead...

  "That cable, does it ever break?" I probably croaked.

  He laughed; "Yep.  Not often, but we train pilots in simulations for that event, how to get back on the ground safely from a low altitude.  Okay then; ready?"  He motioned to the woman piloting the other plane.  She throttled up, and we began to move forward noisily: we were practically on the ground, and we rumbled and groaned at first.  The prop plane left the ground, veered upward at a steep angle; the cable tightened more, and suddenly we were airborne.  Airborne!  Hauled like a cat on a leash, swaying at the end of our tether as we watched the little plane choose a vector and climb ever higher.  We straightened out with increased altitude.

  "I'm going to release the cable now; it'll be loud. CLUNK!  The plane in front of us peeled off; we were on our own.  Steve pointed the nose south and east.

  "Look over there at Crossroads Mall; see the clouds above it, how they're flat on the bottom?  That's because the heat from the macadam is pushing up against them; it's called a thermal, and that's what we'll ride on."  He looked at me in his mirror; laughed again.  "You okay?'

  "Oh god yeah..."

  He caught the thermals; below us were zillions of tiny cars parked in their little suckling piggy rows, and we rode the loops ever wider and higher, and when he was satisfied at his altitude, he headed west to the Flatirons: huge granite up-thrust monoclines, reddish and sparkly and dotted with trees; the gorgeous and well-known formations that marked Boulder as Boulder.  Steve explained how the thermals changed near them, the shadow sides and sunlit sides; but hell, I didn't pay much attention, we were soaring!  He played with the air currents; he'd dip into the sides of the mountains so close we could see the faces of hikers and climbers as they waved...then he'd fall off away, and find another thermal, climb it, and do it again...and again.

  "Want to go north?"  I managed another nod.  He headed north along the Front Range, pointing out locations as we went; it sure all looked different from up here.  We could see Long's Peak in the distance.  To tell the truth, I don't know how far north we went before he turned back; an hour's worth of distance maybe?

  Besides his voice, the only sound was the continual shhhhhhhhhhh that was us, gliding through the sky...it makes me teary to remember it; surrounded by Wedgwood blue sky, and big puffball clouds, flat on the bottoms, and the shhhhhhh that changed ever so  slightly as we moved through different slices of air. 

  His voice broke the spell; "Would you like to try something more adventurous?  A wing-over, maybe?"  (whatever that was.)

  I must have nodded; I do remember looking at his eyes in the mirror.  He seemed so damned capable; I loved that man right then; I trusted him.  We were almost back to the Flatirons.  He dipped the port wing, and kept dipping until it pointed to the ground; we rolled more, oh my god we're rolling over...my cheeks turned to latex, mooshing and stretching with the changes in gravity; my eyes changed shape and it was hard to see; my body strained against the safety belts...my hair hung upside down.  We must have still been moving forward, looking at the ground didn't tell me much, it was twisting and foreign.  How could Steve tell what was going on?  I was lost....and then we were suddenly upright again, turning back toward the rock faces, catching another thermal and climbing higher, above them now, and to the west...oh my oh my oh my oh my...ah ah ah ah...Oooooooh.

  "Wendy; hey, Wendy...would you like to take the controls now?  I'll talk you through it...you'll love it."

  Take the fucking controls? I must have yelled.  Or did I?  I can't even tell you what my fucking name is just now!  Are you crazy??  I probably just gargled out "Arrgglle," and the what my name is  part; I do remember that.  He howled!  His eyes in the mirror were all crinkly with laughter; I was probably some shade of grey, but damn, that was fun!  I think he did another one; I forget; the sun was just starting to go down, and the slightest tinge of orange and gold were on the clouds... that slightly metallic sheen that makes you think of heaven and god and all.  Time to head home.  (Noooooooooooh!)

  There was the tiny airport office; the runway; no other planes waiting to land...he landed gently...nose up until we slowed enough, then the nose dropped to the ground, crunch.  We sat in silence for a few minutes; maybe he remembered how it was the first time...the need to decompress a bit, to adjust to being grounded, while the images of the silent freedom of soaring were still playing on...and on.  He unlatched the canopy, and we climbed out, hauled the plane back, and fastened it to its moorings for the night.

  I thanked him; we parted.  It was hard to speak, and he didn't press me on it.  He remembered.

  I went twice more, but neither of the trips was as far-flung and long; he'd just happened to have the extra time that day. 

  It was quite a gift he'd given me, and I wanted, of course, to return the favor.  You'll be pleased to know that after each of his long sessions of bodywork, he looked every bit as dreamy and dazed, and was just as speechless as I'd been from his care.