Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Waxing Philosophical and a Punch Up

Tomorrow Dominic has his last T-1 flight, and then he's through with work until he has to go to survival school on September 11th, where he will be dropped off in the wilderness of Washington state and be punched up a good bit and made to kill and eat a rabbit. Also, I think he's going to have to sit in a box too small for him for a day or so and pretend to be a POW. Oh, the things one must do in order to be an aviator in the Air Force.

We're both kind of sad he has to depart on this bit of school--meant to help him preserve his life if, god help us, he ever needs to--on the 11th. Dominic, because he's nervous about flying on a good day (big fat lovely irony, right?). Me, because I try very hard not to associate my husband with the things going on with the American military and current affairs in general. This is probably stupid of me, but I find that Not Thinking About It works and helps to keep me calm. In an era of a presidential administration and foreign policy that I haven't been able to understand or support, I'm shocked to find myself so close to it all, just one step away from being impacted by war in the worst possible way. So while Dominic's away being beaten up I expect him to be a perfect student and learn a whole bunch about how to survive a worst case scenario. And then when he comes home we'll both be thankful that he won't ever have to go in there on foot, that he'll be in a plane high, high above the shooting, the landmines, and the bombs.

It's shocking to me how life seems to consist of a lot of randomly strung together coincidences that cohere together into these fragile and beautiful things: a marriage, a career, our lives together just beginning. Some people would call it fate. At this point in my life I'm more comfortable with seeing it as a mild, fortuitous form of serendipity. But I still struggle to understand what it all means, and how I have to change myself to accommodate it all, little by little by little.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Understanding is desirable - but not required. Dwell perfectly in the present and the understanding becomes self-evident.

3:23 PM  
Blogger Carrie said...

I couldn't imagine having someone I love that close to war. :( I would definitely not think about it.

8:14 AM  
Blogger Audra said...

Dominic is closer to all that than I am, but it's still very scary knowing that anytime the government deems it necessary (after they send the Girl Scouts) they could send the band.

It's okay, I'm with the band.

10:36 AM  

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