By all appearances, I have had the whole day today to write, or at least to figure out what to write. It's the first day I have had in a good long while that holds that luxury. It has reminded me that writing and expression are rarely a neat and tight fit for the spaces designed to contain them, so unlike the styrofoam structures that surround audio-visual products in their original packaging, the ones that make the television or the DVD player or the computer so difficult to get out of the box, and which never seem to go back in the way they came out.
It is best to surrender. As ever.
Here are the three thoughts that have played through my head all day long. They began early this morning, when my dog got me up much earlier than I would have liked. Each has made it clear that it has no intention of being expanded much beyond itself, resisting every feeble attempt that I have made to "write about" one or the other. They appear here in the order of their intensity, repetition, and insistence.
Today, I am an old woman.
There have been more than a few moments in my life when I have believed that I actually have flown. Yes, like a bird. Briefly, but as my daughter says, "every second counts". And if I could remember how I did it on those occasions, I could do it again. You know the feeling of scrunching your eyes tight, covering your ears, and listening as hard as you can for a clear memory? That's the one.
One of my favorite books from childhood, From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, has suddenly and repeatedly inserted itself into my life again, popping up everywhere in the way things do that want you to notice them. Okay. I've noticed. I'm listening. Tonight, we watched the movie. I didn't even know there was a movie. The central character (in my opinion) is an angel, making me wonder about our fascination with images of people with wings.
To no one's surprise, I also got a song. Just now, actually, which probably explains why I waited until 9 p.m. to write. Strangely--or actually, not so strangely at all--it encompasses all three of the "messages" of this day. This time, it's Angel From Montgomery. Bonnie Raitt & John Prine. Cue it up. Listen closely.
Have you ever gotten a package with those cornstarch-based packing peanuts? Have you ever put them in water and seen how they disappear? Cool, right?
I'll take them over tight-fit styrofoam any day.
Showing posts with label flying. Show all posts
Showing posts with label flying. Show all posts
Sunday, June 7
Tuesday, March 31
Staying Afloat
...or is it Aloft?
Amazing how the metaphors sustain themselves.
I agreed to do this blog-every-day thing for the whole month. And here it is, March 30. Tomorrow it is over. Today I got the re-up notice from nablopomo, so I have to decide if I'm crazy enough to do it again. I probably am. But that's not really my point.
The thing is, for the first time, in a whole month of blogging every day, I have nothing to say. Plenty to write about, that's true. But nothing to say.
I'm thinking that it must because I'm coming in for a landing.
Maybe I'm going to have to do it for another month after all.
As one of my favorite bloggers says (in all her wisdom): They can't all be gems.
Monday, March 30
Unfailingly Human. Damn.
I had a hell of a conversation last night. I am still reeling.
The thing is, I wasn't always clear what we were talking about, but that was not only okay, it was intriguing. It called to mind another dear friend's comment, made many years ago, that she counted me as one of her artist friends because when were were talking, sometimes she wasn't at all sure what I was talking about and she felt like she didn't understand what I was saying, but then she just listened and responded, and stayed in the conversation, and so maybe she did know what I was talking about after all. It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. The way I heard it, she got it in spite of herself and her perceived limitations. I don't know about you, but I think that's cool. In any case, that's how last night's conversation was for me.
There is absolutely no way to explain what the conversation was about, so it will have to suffice to say that I am aware (at least today, I am) that we were totally speaking in metaphor without necessarily having any idea we were speaking in metaphor (at least until the very end). We were just talking about stuff. Isn't that so cool?
She was talking about flying an airplane, about landing, about air currents, about flight simulators, about the relative cost of gas, of the angle at which an airplane can climb, how far it can go on a tank of gas, what happens if an airplane runs out of gas, how it's different (or not) to fly in the mountains or by the ocean.
I was talking about snorkeling and scuba diving, about currents, tides, reefs, and waves, about neutral buoyancy, about clearing your ears under water, about how long a tank of air lasts (versus how long I would like a tank of air to last), about how surfacing is the hardest part.
I'm not here to tell you that there was any grand conclusion. I'm mostly here to tell you that it made me think. This is why I love the theme of this blog, as hard as it might be sometimes to frame my writing to fit neatly within its confines. Because not getting things is, well....life. Sometimes not getting things is frustrating, or infuriating, or maddening, or another synonym that I won't dig for since you already have three. And sometimes not getting things is positively entrancing. There is so much I don't get about our conversation. There is so much I don't get about piloting a small place, especially since I've never done it. There is so much I don't get about diving, even though I have done it. There is so much I don't get about all the amazing things that shared experience holds.
So it turns out, at least for me, that we were talking about having to come to terms with the fact that we are human beings (well, most of us, anyway). That the oceans, which make up almost three-quarters of the surface of earth and hold half of the species that live on our planet, are a land that is not ours. Get this: more than 95% of the oceans have not been explored (not that I really understand what "explored" means...it conjures those darned Columbus images, which turns me off, but I'm mostly just trying to take in the vastness of it all and forget about semantics)! As much as we might feel at home there, as much as we might want to be fish (or whales, or dolphins, or for the couch potatoes among us, a sea anemone), as much as we can pretend to be a denizen of that world with the aid of shiny metal tanks or even robust lungs, it is not our place. And when we travel there, we know that it's not our place. We are limited there. It has its own weather, its only rules, its own landscape. We don't speak the language (not that it matters, since you can't speak anyway with a regulator in your mouth). We can't stay.
And we're not birds either, apparently. Ditto all of the above for the air, for the sky. Except that's not 3/4 of the earth, it's everywhere. And it's still not ours. Kinda gives that arrogance of being human a run for its money, doesn't it? That's what I love about talking (and now writing) about this. It's like one big nanny-nanny-boo-boo to people.
One of the thing she told me is that airplanes don't like to land. Now, I never thought about airplanes as having preferences before, but I get it. They want to be birds. We build them to be metal contraptions which actually float on air (which is kinda incredible, you gotta admit), and then we want them to stop floating on the air whenever we say stop. Sounds like a power play, doesn't it. Humans. Geez.
It is fascinating and compelling to me, the idea that it is not in the leaving our plane (no pun intended. Really.) that we are disturbed. No, we are eager to go. We love to explore, we love to go under the ocean, to go into the sky, to imagine that we are birds, or fish, or some creature that inhabits that place other than the ground. The take-off is easy. Exciting. The underwater descent is relaxing. It's the coming back to our place that's hard. I had thought it might be the opposite, but no. There is resistance--in the case of the subjects of our conversation, even physical resistance--in returning to the place that we are "supposed" to be, as humans.
Weird, huh?
I'm thinkin' that maybe it's like being born, about the biblical story (ha! me, referencing a biblical story!) that teaches us that birth will be painful, as punishment for sin. So maybe leaving the 10 vertical feet or so of airspace in which we live is sin, and we must pay for our return?
Nah.
Maybe I'll just have to leave it in there as one of the things I don't get. I sure do wonder a lot, though (as if you haven't noticed).
Tonight, I am just so grateful for friends who talk to me about this stuff. May you all have someone to call you up, or better yet, visit from a far distant place, with whom you can have a conversation that you don't quite understand. It's such a gift.
The thing is, I wasn't always clear what we were talking about, but that was not only okay, it was intriguing. It called to mind another dear friend's comment, made many years ago, that she counted me as one of her artist friends because when were were talking, sometimes she wasn't at all sure what I was talking about and she felt like she didn't understand what I was saying, but then she just listened and responded, and stayed in the conversation, and so maybe she did know what I was talking about after all. It was one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me. The way I heard it, she got it in spite of herself and her perceived limitations. I don't know about you, but I think that's cool. In any case, that's how last night's conversation was for me.
There is absolutely no way to explain what the conversation was about, so it will have to suffice to say that I am aware (at least today, I am) that we were totally speaking in metaphor without necessarily having any idea we were speaking in metaphor (at least until the very end). We were just talking about stuff. Isn't that so cool?
She was talking about flying an airplane, about landing, about air currents, about flight simulators, about the relative cost of gas, of the angle at which an airplane can climb, how far it can go on a tank of gas, what happens if an airplane runs out of gas, how it's different (or not) to fly in the mountains or by the ocean.
I was talking about snorkeling and scuba diving, about currents, tides, reefs, and waves, about neutral buoyancy, about clearing your ears under water, about how long a tank of air lasts (versus how long I would like a tank of air to last), about how surfacing is the hardest part.
I'm not here to tell you that there was any grand conclusion. I'm mostly here to tell you that it made me think. This is why I love the theme of this blog, as hard as it might be sometimes to frame my writing to fit neatly within its confines. Because not getting things is, well....life. Sometimes not getting things is frustrating, or infuriating, or maddening, or another synonym that I won't dig for since you already have three. And sometimes not getting things is positively entrancing. There is so much I don't get about our conversation. There is so much I don't get about piloting a small place, especially since I've never done it. There is so much I don't get about diving, even though I have done it. There is so much I don't get about all the amazing things that shared experience holds.
So it turns out, at least for me, that we were talking about having to come to terms with the fact that we are human beings (well, most of us, anyway). That the oceans, which make up almost three-quarters of the surface of earth and hold half of the species that live on our planet, are a land that is not ours. Get this: more than 95% of the oceans have not been explored (not that I really understand what "explored" means...it conjures those darned Columbus images, which turns me off, but I'm mostly just trying to take in the vastness of it all and forget about semantics)! As much as we might feel at home there, as much as we might want to be fish (or whales, or dolphins, or for the couch potatoes among us, a sea anemone), as much as we can pretend to be a denizen of that world with the aid of shiny metal tanks or even robust lungs, it is not our place. And when we travel there, we know that it's not our place. We are limited there. It has its own weather, its only rules, its own landscape. We don't speak the language (not that it matters, since you can't speak anyway with a regulator in your mouth). We can't stay.
And we're not birds either, apparently. Ditto all of the above for the air, for the sky. Except that's not 3/4 of the earth, it's everywhere. And it's still not ours. Kinda gives that arrogance of being human a run for its money, doesn't it? That's what I love about talking (and now writing) about this. It's like one big nanny-nanny-boo-boo to people.
One of the thing she told me is that airplanes don't like to land. Now, I never thought about airplanes as having preferences before, but I get it. They want to be birds. We build them to be metal contraptions which actually float on air (which is kinda incredible, you gotta admit), and then we want them to stop floating on the air whenever we say stop. Sounds like a power play, doesn't it. Humans. Geez.
It is fascinating and compelling to me, the idea that it is not in the leaving our plane (no pun intended. Really.) that we are disturbed. No, we are eager to go. We love to explore, we love to go under the ocean, to go into the sky, to imagine that we are birds, or fish, or some creature that inhabits that place other than the ground. The take-off is easy. Exciting. The underwater descent is relaxing. It's the coming back to our place that's hard. I had thought it might be the opposite, but no. There is resistance--in the case of the subjects of our conversation, even physical resistance--in returning to the place that we are "supposed" to be, as humans.
Weird, huh?
I'm thinkin' that maybe it's like being born, about the biblical story (ha! me, referencing a biblical story!) that teaches us that birth will be painful, as punishment for sin. So maybe leaving the 10 vertical feet or so of airspace in which we live is sin, and we must pay for our return?
Nah.
Maybe I'll just have to leave it in there as one of the things I don't get. I sure do wonder a lot, though (as if you haven't noticed).
Tonight, I am just so grateful for friends who talk to me about this stuff. May you all have someone to call you up, or better yet, visit from a far distant place, with whom you can have a conversation that you don't quite understand. It's such a gift.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)