My Life, My Love, and My Lady

Hello everybody. It's a nice quiet Saturday in the early afternoon, a nice time for a blog. Karen's out of town at the Arnold Air Society and Silver Wings National Conclave. Whatever the hell a conclave is, I guess calling it anything else was too . . . conventional (engage sunglasses). Either way I'm all by myself this weekend. There's been a song stuck in my head intermittently for the past several weeks so I thought it may be worth blogging about. You've probably heard the song before, it's called Brandy by the Looking Glass. The song tells a sad tale, one which I hope never hits too close to home for me. Allow me to explain and over-analyze like I do best...

The song describes Brandy, a cute young bombshell who works at a harbor as a bartender. It's a town defined by it's shores; the way Pittsburgh is the city of steel or how bourbon puts the smallest counties of Kentucky on the map. The town that Brandy calls home is one that likely wouldn't be there without the harbor. Every night, life is delivered to the sprawl of quiet streets when a new fleet of ships from all over the world come to moor at the docks of this small port-town to restock. 

They never say where exactly the harbor is. Part of what makes the song so enjoyable to me is how the lyrics are filled with unanswered questions and holes for your mind to fill with whatever content you feel fit. Brandy could be a NorCalanese brunette, working nights at one of the several bars which line the docks deep in the San Francisco Bay to pay off student debt. Some may picture Brandy being the only American on staff at an island dive in the Caribbean, a place where only the cruise ship crews go to avoid the tourists. Hell she could be in Höfn, Iceland for all we know; hosting idle chitchat with Sean O'Connell and Walter Mitty.

"There's a port on a western bay, and it serves a hundred ships a day. Lonely sailors 
pass the time away and talk about their homes."

It reminds me of how much I love hubs. Whether a seaport or an airport, anywhere that connects the long line between two far-away lands is a place in which I couldn't mind spending  layover*, enjoying a drink. Airport bars that seat thousands of pilots trying to jumpseat home for the holidays, the heavily used Marriott hotels with crew vans lining the valet drive, or the humble watering-holes lining the docks of Höfn; the places that host people from all over the world on a daily basis are the places in which I typically feel most at home. And that is exactly the type of harbor-town I picture when I listen to the song.

Brandy is hot, that much we do know. She's very popular among the sailors who never see her no more than a few times a year. She gets them drunk for cheap and enjoys hearing about all the distant places her patrons have seen. Brandy probably has a studio apartment within walking distance from the bar filled with trinkets and oddities the sailors bring her. I picture a bunch of socially awkward old men trying to impress a a beautiful young girl with an array of crap. 

"This is a machete from the Island of Roatán! I know there's no rainforests around here, but if there were you'd be prepared, Brandy!"
"This bottle of Port came from a port in Portugal that's literally called Port! And you work at a port! Funny huh? It's actually really gross and you wouldn't like it, but I heard fancy people drink it!"
"It's authentic Moroccan leather, they make it with bird shit in a bacteria ridden cesspit in the middle of the medina, but it's softer than any other leather!"

Although among the ranks of desperate men crying for her attention, there does seem to be one sailor who stands out. She always looks forward to seeing him over the thousands of bachelors she serves. Gifts from this charming sailor are different than the rest. She wears the jewelry he brings her, drinks the overseas wine he chooses for her, and keeps every reminder of him nearby.

The young seaman falls pretty hard for her. His whole life he's never questioned spending his life on the water. He's one of us who, at the most fundamental level, possess whatever gene it is that draws our undivided attention to the vastness of the globe and our need to conquer it. It's the only thing that matters in life, going completely unquestioned for most of it, and only ever possibly changed by a girl: Brandy, whose "eyes could steal a sailor from the sea."

"Brandy wears a braided chain made of the finest silver
from the north of Spain; a locket, that bears the name,
of the man that Brandy loves."

Any man who travels can relate. Every time we leave the continent, the availability of the coolest shit in the world skyrockets. The jewelry, the highest quality fabric and leather, the hand-painted artifacts, all only come to those who leave home. However more often than not, leaving home also means leaving your sweetheart for longer than we'd like. Despite wanting nothing more than to bring her along, the best we can do as sailors, pilots, and adventurers is "bring gifts from far away, and make it clear we couldn't stay, as no harbor is our home." The sailors can give her such amazing jewelry from all over the world. They can browse through a Turkish bazaar and come out with hundreds of dollars of gems and diamonds. But the gentleman who loves Brandy the most will never be able to get her the diamond ring she wants the to wear most.

It's a decision we all have to make as men of the sea, the sky, and the road. Secure our angel for good and implant our roots into the soil of a single town, or make do with the one or two weeks out of each month we can actually spend with her. Some blame it on the stubbornness of man or the lack of compassion for our families, but almost all of us choose the latter without much thought. "The sailor said 'Brandy, you're a fine girl, what a good wife you would be. But my life, my love, and my lady is the sea.'"  The man stays a sailor, and Brandy stays in her harbor by herself.

Of course we can bring our companions along for the journey every now and then, or craftily set our schedule up to maximize the our time on the ground, but the heart-sinking reality is never forgotten. We will spend far more time holding the yoke or the helm than our sweethearts at night, we will playfully flirt with chop and turbulence more than our wives and children, and the wings pinned to our chest or the curl sewn to our sleeves will feel like a promise harder to uphold than the rings on our finger. It may seem selfish, but the euphoria given to us from the clouds and waves outweigh the guilt of leaving her at home for weeks at a time.

"Brandy used to watch his eyes when he told his sailor stories. 
She could feel the ocean fall and rise, she saw its raging glory." 

Brandy spends everyday alone, laying whisky down for hundreds of other sailors who rarely spend more than a night in town. It's monotonous and empty for her until her man finally returns, and she's blessed and overly thankful for the 36 hours she gets to spend with him. He'd spend the layover catching her up on stories and reveal a new set of presents to hold her over until next month.  Then he would leave with his crew, leaving poor Brandy behind in the harbor for an indefinite amount of time. 

And that's the awful part: feeling overjoyed as you rotate your 800,000 pound mistress to part ways with land, and simultaneously nauseated as your Brandy, proudly waving from the fence, fades from view. I imagine it doesn't matter how much adoration you have for flight, contacting your domicile's approach will always feel a thousand times better than switching from it's tower to departure. 

I'd really hate to imagine living a life like Brandy and the sailor. I hope my life doesn't have to be torn between the sky and my loved ones. It seems like the happiest people we know are the guys who say their family is all that's important to them; but that's what separates sailors and aviators from the average man. Unfortunately, the life of an airline pilot isn't much negotiable. Christmases will be spent in hotels, birthdays will be celebrated via Skype, and the master schedule is made without taking into account how little time you spent at home last month. The one thing that is promised when the schedule comes out, is that a pilot's incessant need to fly will be satisfied for another month. 

I hate admitting it, but I'm no different than the sailor in the song. Every pilot in the world will come to the point where he feels the same way. Flight is what drives us, and spending another month on the line is the priority for everyone like me. It'd be blatantly false to say we don't love the people we are forced leave at home; but the even the most love-struck sailor will soon kiss Brandy goodbye and a reluctantly confess to her "my life, my love, and my lady, is the sea."

And Brandy, just like any woman who shares her husband with his wings, "does her best to understand."

*This does not include the city of Memphis.