I meet an Air Force pilot who looks a bit like a miniature Katherine Hepburn: strong cheekbones and jaw, 40s wavy perm. But she's light and small. Quite a famous aviator. But touchy, somehow alone here, though surrounded by men--they either patronize, get chivalrous, or want to compete.

On her birthday, she takes the day off to relax alone. But her squadron-mates drag her kicking and screaming (literally! She has a real temper) off in a jeep with them, out to a lonely farm where her birthday-present is. From all of them. She screams "I don't want whatever it is!" All she wants is to fly. But they drag her out back... and she falls silent. Flight's exactly what they got her. On a home-made airstrip stands her own plane, an amazing new model she's wanted to try but could never afford.

On her shakedown flight, she crosses a border into a foreign country, getting used to the plane, and learning the language over the radio. She thinks it's Dutch. But the border has changed--not space but time! She's flown into the future, where the Netherlands has shrunk as the sea rose. Shallow lagoons spangled with floating crystal cities, where most Dutch live now.

But it wasn't a physical border, really, neither time NOR space: she's really crossed into the spirit world! That's some gift they got her! An astral plane...

Slowly she learns to shuttle back and forth, guided by a guardian angel. I slowly start to see its figure. Only faintly, in odd moments--a tall glass statue. But alive, alive, alive!

I'm not even sure she realizes it... but she's learning to be not just an experimental pilot, but a shaman.

NOTES IN THE MORNING

• I do keep people away, men in particular. Feel isolated, wanting to soar but not be one of the boys...
• My friend Melissa recommended a yoga class at the gym we both go to; and said El Rio Bar is the best local singles place. That night, I dreamed she knew how to fly--and was willing to teach me. So...
• Flying = dating, socializing?
• Dutch, pilots, angels = Tori Amos's eerie song Not the Red Baron. It opens with snatches of Dutch over the radio, then:

  Not the Red Baron
  Not Charlie Brown.
  Think I got the message figured:
  Another pilot down.
  And are there devils with halos
  in beautiful capes
  taking them into the flames...

  But there's a difference--Tori's devil-angels lure you into duels and crashes, but in my dream, Amelia Earhart's angel seems to be a true guardian, teaching her...
• ACTION: Face it. I'm a recluse who needs to be dragged kicking and screaming out to get what I've been longing for! Go to singles bars, to yoga classes, dance classes... I dread it, but I'm safer out there than I know--I have a guardian angel.

  Who I barely heed--and haven't learned to see.

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