Blog Entry #20

The last quarter of a decade in my life has been a series of ups and downs, ins and outs, backs and forths, lefts and rights, forwards and reverses, as well as containing a little of the reds, blues, greens and the occasional pinks. I have no idea what the pinks actually are, but I assure you that they were there. After all, it was the last quarter of a decade of MY life, and I, your humble narrator, could not be wrong about what I felt. As I sit writing this, I wish to impart some grandiose idea that will fill your arms and perhaps ears as well with crystals of various sizes and shapes, hues and tones, each more precious than the last. Sadly though I fear that I shall let you down, for the fact of the matter is you are not me. Nor have you ever been. It may appear that all is lost, and this story must end even before it even begins. Thankfully dear readers this is not the case. For I have been you, and have especially been I. But what is I other than a ridiculously head spinning strange loop? In my humble opinion, I is everything. It is me, and because of this very fact it is you. Oh my, how I’ve digressed. It went like this…
“Do you think I can fly?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“No, I mean it. Do you think I can fly?”
“What, like a bird?”
“Yeah, you know. Or like a plane.”
“Of course not”
“Well why not?”
“Because it’s impossible.”
“Well since you seem to be full of answers, who says it’s impossible?”
“Scientists for one, as well as teachers and all the people who’ve stained the pavement when they landed.”
“What if they just all forgot how to?”
“What are you getting at?”
“You mean to tell me that you’ve never stood outside during August and heard the cool summer breeze gently croon in your ear inviting you to dance with the trees?”
“What? Are you being serious?”
“Of course I am. Why would I lie about something as serious as flying?”
“There is so much wrong with that statement, I don’t even know where to begin.”
“Why don’t you start from the beginning.”
“First off, you said that the wind croons in your ear inviting you to dance with trees. The wind can’t talk.”
“Says who?”
“I don’t know. People.”
“Did you ever think that they just aren’t listening?”
“Are you going to let me finish?”
“Yes, my apologies. Proceed.”
“As I was saying, you said that the wind croons in your ear and invites you to come and dance with the trees, which of course if utterly ridiculous, and after that when I asked you if you were being serious you stated: ‘Why would I lie about’ something or another, oh damn it I can’t remember.”
“I would lie about several things, as well as to several people, but never about flying.”
“Why are you hung up about this?”
“It’s something that I’ve been thinking about for awhile now. I just wish I could remember how.”
“If, just for the sake of argument, you could remember. . .”
“To fly.”
“Yes, to fly.”
“Yes.”
“Do you think it would really change anything?”
“No. It would change nothing, and because nothing would change so would everything.”
“Now that makes even less sense than that stuff about flying.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t be so negative. When I learn to fly I may just leave you behind.”
“You wouldn’t, because you can’t fly, you never will.”
“Fine. Then, what is keeping me from flying?”
“Physics.”
“Aside from that.”
“Biology.”
“Aside from that.”
“. . .”
“It appears to me that the only think keeping me from flying is you.”
“You can’t be serious right now.”
“I mean it. If I want to fly I can.”
“No you can’t.”
“Yes I can, and more importantly I will.”
“Okay. Let me know when this happens.”

It was hard, but after what seemed to be an agonizing 3 years I indeed remembered how to fly. I can’t tell you how, for it is different for each person, however I can tell you that Douglas Adams got it all wrong. It is not simply falling, but missing the ground. Flying is the feeling that you get as you watch the bumblebees doing arithmetic under a dew filled sky on the shores of that peaceful lake your family drags you to every summer. Flying is that person that no matter how much they practice, they still stink at whatever it is they are trying to do. In the simplest of words flying IS everything. In a series of rather complex words forming a equally complex idea flying is the state that one achieves when they remain absolutely still. It is in this stillness that we are able to fully understand mystery, since it is in everything. So, because mystery is everything; and flying is everything, it can be inferred that if we understand mystery we understand how to fly. That is all I have for you now dear readers. Please do not take these words lightly, run with them over long green muddy fields and jump with all your might. Reach for the sky my dears, together we can make it.

Poem #25: Freeverse

I know that we’ve said enough is enough, but this time I mean it.
I’ve learned something that others have forgotten.
This something happens to be part of everything.
It’s there for everyone, they just ignore it.
I don’t know why I never noticed it before lingering just out of sight.
It’s there with you now, lurking in the spaces that your eyes have forgotten how to reach.
It taunts you as you sleep at night crawling into your ears like a ghost.
This mystery is, to be blunt, nothing special.
It’s only everything.
It’s largely made of nothing.
It’s odd that in everything and nothing there is power.
I assure you though, it’s there.
Now that I have the power to leave, I will.