Since 1987 I’ve been a pilot in many different capacities. I’ve been a flight-instructing, organ-transporting, commuter-flying, on-demand, corporate, demo and jet pilot. It’s been an extraordinary adventure! It’s also a career that I expected to span my entire adult life.

Motoring along on autopilot, I intently focused on what I considered “the track.” Right seat, left seat then move on to a bigger jet. What else is there, right? Oh yes, my left-brain had it all figured out.

Midway through the tirelessly researched and carefully calculated career action plan, I encountered a patch of turbulence that wasn’t forecasted. It was the kind of heavy, hunker down on your five-point harness kind of rough air. Marriage, stepchildren and an unscheduled relocation to Tulsa, OK that caused my usual steady stick hand to waver a bit.

I used to blame the move to Tulsa for derailing my perfectly charted path, but the truth is, 24-hour call wasn’t the only reason I laid awake most nights. I love stories. An inherent passion that I suspect flows from my Celtic roots. Because of that passion I’ve always kept a journal.

I would write in my journal in pilot’s lounges, on the floors of ladies’ rooms, hotel lobbies, dive diners, even while on the ramp waiting for passengers to arrive. I’d write about the amazing places I visited, curious people I encountered and the triumphs and terrors that came with flying corporate jets. Even though I cursed the Okies for quite a stretch of time, I know now that the transition to the Sooner state was the only way to shatter a serious case of tunnel vision. Enter the epiphany, the realization that it’s okay to be spontaneous, change course, willingly succumb to what overwhelmed my senses and tugged on my heart. So I became an author. Spirit Dance is the first novel in my young adult “In the Eye of the Storm” series. Take a seat, buckle up, thank you for joining as I explore phase two of my life.