An Unconventional Landing

I have been flying since I was a "wee bairn" as they would say in Scotland. (For the record I am not a Celt but a generic Asian Canadian), traveling across oceans, between continents and from the Northern to the Southern Hemispheres regularly.

When I was 20 however, the unthinkable happened, I had what  was described as a really bad flight. It was 1986 and I was on  Korean Airlines flight from Seoul to Hong Kong. The plane had been delayed at Kimpo and I had fallen asleep  upon boarding and when I woke up, my plane zipping on a precarious angle between two super-sized sky-scrappers, but that  wasn't what freaked me out. It was the fact that I appeared to be descending into the South China Sea, at a great speed to an early demise and the last thing I saw before I was about to go splat was rather rumpled resident of one of the skyscrapers picking his nose.

Suddenly the runway appeared out of no where and I had what I can only describe as a near death experience. The plane thudded, skidded and bumped to a screeching halt. I don't think I ever got over it. Every flight thereafter required copious amounts of alcohol and a halcion scrip--every landing was "tough"

Kai Tak Airport circa 1986

Fast forward 23 years and my fear of flight has not diminished. Rather than taking vacations to exotic places I limited my flying to one trip a year to a yoga retreat in Oaxaca and the occasional weekend jaunts to Montreal to see my son or visit friends in New York City with my daughter. My life became less about seeing the world as it was about knitting the world together from the comfort of my downtown Toronto walk up.  In fact my life became focused on fibrenista-ing, "Stitching and Bitching: with other knitsters and tit-knitting (more about that later)

Life was sweet. I had a yarn stash that was the envy of most of my friend's in Toronto's Downtown Knit Collective, fab kids and cats who respected fibre (neither licked or clawed the cashmere). I was even one of two Canadian textile artists featured in Sabrina Gschwantder's book Knitknit Projects and Profiles from Knitting's New Wave.

My only problem, was I was sleeping with my yarn stash on a regular basis. The femme offspring unit, who normally thought boys were yucky, was perturbed with my cashmere cuddling and suggested an intervention. My bestie Nina, who had been charged with boarding a plane while wearing a pendant resembling a small firearm, convinced me that it was a good idea to start <insert shriek here. dating. Off I went to internet dating land. Being a textile artist I posted a picture of myself wearing yarn in my hair After a few weeks of being online, there were NO, NADA or as we say in Putonghua (Mandarin), MEIYOU  messages in my In Box.

My Dating Site Picture

Very few potential dates even bothered to look at  my profile.  A friend, who happened to be a Plasma Propulsion Specialist had previously posted a picture of Schrodinger's Cat on his profile told me to ixne, the yarn picture. It was not a good look he said. Experience had taught him that physics, online dating just don't mix. Same for fibre and dating. I was getting ready to become a crazy cat lady when the unthinkable happened, someone actually read my profile. 

Finally a potential date (and he had opposeable thumbs), So I sent him a message, "Nu? Kreplach?" (a.k.a. a Jewish wonton as his profile stated that he was a member of the tribe.) 

His Date Site icture

Surprisingly he wrote back, "When? Where?"

Me: "This weekend? Kensington Market?"

Him: "That won't work"

Me, "Next week?"

Him, "No that won't work either"

It was clear that this was going nowhere fast, so I wrote, "Great picture" and figured that was the end of that. Then the long reply came, "Thanks, that was taken at Oshkosh when I was preparing to fly a friend's Grumman Avenger." 

Fly? As in an airplane?  Oshkosh? as in the Wisconsin Aviation Convention ? Grumman Avenger as in the World War II Torpedo Bomber that George Bush, Senior was shot down over the Pacific in?

It was obvious that he was not my type. Pilots maybe better looking than particle physicists, but they spent their lives suspended in aluminum tubes thousands of feet off the ground whereas theoretical particle physicists just thought about things and space and experimental physicists blew things up from the safety of their labs located on earth.

What if he wanted to show me his plane? What if he expected me to fly in his plane and enjoy it? Given that we hadn't actually met yet. I re-resolved to become a crazy cat lady with yarn, lots and lots of yarn and forget him especially after he let it drop that the yarn in my hair looked awful.

Despite my best efforts to ignore him, he stayed in touch,texting often. (Patience and persistence I later learned are both hallmarks of a good pilot.) One night, while we were chatting on the telephone (which is considered a "phenomenon" in the digital dating world), I complained about a particularly nasty flight I had from Liberty earlier in the week.  A flight attendant had actually seized--yes seized--my knitting because I would not desist from finishing a sock I was knitting before take off. (Come on it was cold on the plane and  I was planning to wear that sock and its mate the flight). 

"It's tough," he responded thoughtfully, "to knit in public. People often think you are weird if you do it." As it turned out his 8 year old girl child loved  to knit and was often made fun of by her peers for her forays into the fibre world. We met and what followed was an ongoing adventure in aviation and art. My heart has finally landed and it a most unconventional landing ever.

Our most recent adventure is AirCrafting where we bring our air and space, art and craft. Check out this blog for our ruminations of love, life and all things creative.