From 1999-2000, I lived in Zaporozhe, Ukraine.  Reading options in English were somewhat slim, and my access to internet was infrequent at best.  My mother sent me the book West with the Night, by Beryl Markham, who set an aviation record for a solo flight across the Atlantic from East to West.  The book begins,

“How is it possible to bring order out of memory? I should like to start at the beginning, patiently, like a weaver at his loom. This is the place to start; there can be no other. But there are a hundred places to start, as there are a hundred names. . . . and I can begin best by choosing one of them. . . because here it happens to be, turned uppermost in my logbook. . .
So the name shall be Nungwe – as good as any other – entered like this in the log. . .
DATE – 16/6/35
TYPE AIRCRAFT – Avro Avian
MARKINGS – VP – KAN
JOURNEY – Nairobi to Nungwe
TIME – 3 hrs. 40 min
After that comes PILOT – Self; and REMARKS – Of which there were none. But there might have been.”
At the time, I remember enjoying the writing almost more than the subject matter.  But something about the Kenyan aviatrix must have left a residual fascination with flying solo in wild and lonely places.  I believed in what Markham called “the exhilaration of flight.”

Ten years later, I sat across from an acquaintance, eating trout sautéed in butter with almonds at a small restaurant in Virginia, listening to career advice on working with the Federal Aviation Administration (where I had just begun working as a contractor a month prior).  Towards the end of lunch, my new friend said, “You know, if you really are serious about this career, then you should get your pilot’s license.”  In a flash, I decided I was going to become a pilot.  I would record “PILOT – Self” in a logbook.    

Two months after that conversation, I found myself walking toward a C-172.  West With Flight surely falls short of Markham’s prose, but I hope that this blog gives you a sense of the exhilaration you experience in learning to take off and fly.