I Am Sam Sharpe

I’ve listened to a lot of music over the years. Sometimes it’s one of the only ways that I am able to process my feelings in a way that can be considered emotionally healthy. 

When I find myself battling my personal frustrations or the deep feelings of sadness that often plague my thoughts, Sometimes I find that I can’t always express myself outwardly. I tend to bottle things up subconsciously. 

The brain is a powerful thing, yet it can be very self-sabotaging too. I can feel sad, yet not acknowledge the sadness, instead storing it away in some kind of vault where it can’t leave, yet continues to eat away at me from deep within without being addressed. 

I’ve tried many things over the years to remedy such things, yet nothing has come close to the therapy that music can provide. Sometimes it can be a simple piano melody. Other times it can vary from a rock ballad to an orchestral masterpiece. 

It’s hard to explain just why music can have this effect on me. It’s like it provides a borehole leading right into this vault of sadness, allowing some to escape into an area of my concioisness where the emotion can be processed in a healthy way. 

Let’s say I’ve had a crappy day at work. I can be absolutely fine, and all it takes is the right song to be playing, and it can resonate within me in such a fashion that it can open the floodgates for a deluge of emotion. I can be driving home, and then just start crying when a particular song comes on. 

The funny thing is that it’s not just music that can trigger these emotions. It can be other things too. Seeing a small plant clinging to life on the wall of an long abandoned alleyway in a foreign city can be enough to bring forth a powerful emotional response. For me though, it’s always been dramatic landscapes, particularly mountainous ones. 

I recently travelled across Western Canada and Washington State, and seeing the incredible majesty of the mountains there got me thinking about how, geologically speaking, these mountains have been here for mere seconds, yet to us as humans, they have stood for longer than our species have existed. Yet one day, these mountains will be gone. Perhaps before our race ends, perhaps not. 

Turns out that there is a name for this kind of thinking. The Japanese call it “Mono No Aware” which roughly translates to the “Pathos of all things”. All things in life are fragile and impermanent. Everything we know and love is eventually going to fade and pass into the unknown. But at the same time, is that not what makes it beautiful?

As I stood near the summit of the Sulphur Mountain, looking out over the world, I was suddenly struck with a feeling of a deep sadness that one day, that the mountain that I stood upon would one day cease to be exist, and I found myself getting quite emotional. Yet at the same time, I could marvel upon the vista that lay unfurled before me and feel wonder and amazement. 

It’s always been strange to me that I have required the aid of music or mountains to help me process my thoughts. As I have spent the majority of my life living in a state of almost constant anxiety, it seems that it is my default setting. Yet sometimes all I need is a beautiful piece of music combined with a damn good view to help me settle my thoughts. 

Those who know me know I am one of two ways. One of these ways people can see me is sitting quietly, almost as if I am detached from reality or uncaring about what is going on around me. The other way is that I tend to rant about things that have pissed me off that day. 

I can appreciate that from the outside, it doesn’t look great. I’ve been told quite often that I suffer from a “Resting Bitch Face” which would be quite true. 

However, when I am sitting quietly, I am not always detached from the people or the world around me. Admittedly, that can sometimes be the case, particularly after a day where I have been particularly nervous or have had a lot of social interaction which can drain me greatly. 

Most of the time, I simply sit there listening, and trying my hardest to keep myself grounded in the moment. Though it’s not always easy. I’m often quite contented to simply listen, not that I always remember everything I hear. 

Anyway, I guess there’s not much point to this post. If anything, I’ve written it more for me than anybody else. I’ve had a rough couple of weeks, and a lot of things are going wrong. 

I’ll be alright though. 

The Sky. As long as I can remember, it’s always fascinated me. A constantly changing canvas of natural beauty, as far as the eye can see. A place reserved solely for the birds and the bold. A place that many of us living on this planet will never know. 

My first memories of looking up at the sky occurred when I was about four years old. I remember seeing a jet cruising at altitude that at the time was inconceivable for a young boy. For me, the top of the stairs was a huge achievement, let alone 30,000 feet. 

As I watched it move slowly across my field of vision, I was curious about the white lines that it left in its wake. My four year old brain came up with the logic that those mysterious machines were there to create clouds. Why else would they be spewing out lines of cloud as they soared through the air? I was intrigued by the fact that something built by people, who lived on the ground, could go quite so high. 

Several years later around 2003, when I must have been about ten or eleven, we went on a family holiday to Cornwall. The drive seemed to take forever. These were the days before mobile internet, or even before smartphones. I had a Sagem My-X6, which had features such as a colour screen and polyphonic ringtones. My wallpaper was a picture of a plane. 

We were listening to music on my mother’s iPod. The device, which was new technology at the time, had revolutionised our drives, moreso because my father had brought a device that plugged into the iPod’s headphone jack and could broadcast the music on an FM frequency at short range, meaning we would have high quality music through the car radio. 

We were staying at a small cottage just outside of the small town of Camelford in the north of Cornwall. We had been driving for about an hour or so when I saw a small aircraft in the sky. I had never been on an airplane before and watched with interest. Later that day, we pulled up at a small airstrip a few miles from Lands End. My dad had seen a sign labelled “Scenic Flights” and had stopped to enquire. 

Before I knew it, I was being bundled into the back of a Cessna 172 alongside my younger sister. I was given a car seat to sit on, so that I could see out of the window. The take-off was extremely scary and bumpy. Yet before I knew it, we had left the ground. I clearly remember squeezing my sister’s hand hard, yet it was not from fear, more from excitement. I was flying!

We flew around Lands End, looking down on the famous signpost. I remember seeing the patches of sea fog moving gently across the water below. I remember seeing the horizon curve as I looked out to sea. I remember feeling exhilarated, excited and lusting for more.

At that moment, I knew what I wanted to do when I was older. I wanted to fly. 

Flash forward a few years. It was my thirteenth birthday and I was given a card by my Aunt and Uncle. It was a card labelled “Good for One Flying Lesson”. On top of that, I had an AFE Flying Training Guide which never left my schoolbag. 

My family drove me to Coventry Airport and it was there that I tasted flight for the second time. The aircraft was an old, beaten up Reims-Cessna F150L, callsign G-GBLR. 

The flight was incredible, but this time it was even better. I wasn’t just a passenger anymore. I was in the front left seat.

Matt, my instructor, was from Australia, and talked about how they used the 150’s to move around the larger ranches as the Short Take-off & Landing (STOL) capabilities combined with relatively cheap maintenance made it ideal for hopping from place to place quickly.

We flew over Draycote Water, Rugby and Northampton before turning back to Coventry Airport. I had a certificate printed, which I immediately made a copy of so I could show off at school. On top of that, I was told that unlike many people who had their initial flights, I was extraordinarily gentle on the controls, which meant a much comfier flight. 

I had flown a plane, and I had been told I had a knack for it. I’ll admit, this did inflate my ego a bit, but when I was thirteen, the only thing that really mattered to me in life was to be considered “cool” by my classmates. That, and playing video games.

About a month later, I went back for another flying lesson. This time it was with a different instructor. I didn’t like him very much at all. I can’t remember his name either.

We took off towards Draycote Water and he demonstrated the effectiveness of the controls at different airspeeds before performing a stall before we returned. Although exciting, the robotic, monotonous tone of the instructor  somehow made flying boring. I remember sitting in the car on the way home, having enjoyed the experience but not as much as the first time. 

That would be the last time I would fly for over ten years. It wasn’t for lack of passion. I had plenty of that. It was a lack of money. Flying lessons were expensive after all, and I was thirteen years old. I would have to do a paper round for approximately eight weeks just to afford one flying lesson.

And so for a long time, my interest in flying ended up at the back of my mind, as if it was some kind of half-forgotten dream.

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