That was me, joystick between my knees and all.

Flying over the Shenandoah Valley, I was suspended in time, looking at my world, the roads I travel everyday, even the house I live in.

This 25 mile stretch of land contains my life, and from merely 5,000 feet up my world suddenly became so small.

Preparation was unceremonious. I stood freezing while waiting to climb into the bucket seat.

Sixteen degrees outside and Tom Scott, the instructor who was taking me up, warmed the engine for take-off.

I wasn't disturbed by what I had gotten myself into. I was eager to see what this little plane was going to show me.

I have always thought panoramic and bird's-eye view shots were the most captivating, They allow the viewer a glimpse of the world from a perspective impossible to come across with two feet on the ground.

I clicked the buttons Tom told me for take-off; engine, battery, primer. I adjusted my headpiece to make sure he could hear me.

We were in the air at only 40 mph.

Suddenly there I was, two feet in the air.

Every time I fly I say a prayer that I will make it down. I think now I will pray to make it up again.

I felt like an aviation trailblazer, as if no one had seen this their life at this perspective before.

The sky and the surrounding air was mine and no one had had it before me.

I wasn't taking a bird's-eye view, I was in God's-eye view.

The solidarity of a rolling car has always been therapeutic for me.

This was awakening.

Tom Scott didn't seem to notice what was going on with me in the seat next to him.

He seemed like he was just enjoying and showing off his ride.

If I showed a sign of distress he dismissed it. If I declined to take over directing the joystick, he let it go.

"It's like flying a kite," he said.

Except my two feet weren't on the ground.

I tipped the stick to the right and the left wing rose up like a dolphin waving hello. He told me to push the stick away from my body and the nose pointed down.

As we started our descent I had no control of the joystick. He led the plane down and I was forced to look once more at the 25 mile stretch that contains my life.

My house, a monopoly piece on a brown board, was easily lost in the surroundings.

The Appalachian mountains weren't as commanding when looking at them from the top down.

I wanted so badly to stay suspended in the air, staring at my little world within the glass bubble, to make sense of what I had just seen.

But Tom was already guiding this plane down.

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