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Sunday, March 17, 2013

Learning to Fly

My life has been a constant battle with gravity; ever since I was a child I've dreamt of flying. It is the main reason that I spent 14 years as a competitive swimmer, since underwater is the only place I can feel weightless and have the sensation that I'm as free as an eagle.

I think I first realized my desire when watching Saturday morning cartoons, seeing Superman take off like a missile and go shooting through space with no hindrance. So like any 5 year old kid, I went outside, straightened my arms over my head, clenched my fists, and launched myself off of our back porch. Unfortunately gravity got the best of me on that day. But I was not discouraged; the failed attempt simply redoubled my hunger for flight. I strapped garbage can lids to my arms: too heavy; I cut out some wings from cardboard: too flimsy; I found some big discs made out of woven reeds, and for a mere fraction of a second, I felt the air resistance lift my arms, stretch the muscles in my armpits, and slow my decent. From that moment I was hooked.
Of course out of nostalgia I had to do it like a swimming start.

As I got older I realized the irrationality of my dream of flight. I laughed at how ridiculous I must have looked strapping anything large and flat I could find to my arms and flapping them like wings as I leaped off of our porch and landed with a splat, crumpled in a heap of broken wings and broken dreams. I saw the comparison to the mad turn of the century inventors that had died attempting the same that I was, and I promised myself that I would stick to the back porch, and not jump off of cliffs or into ravines with my makeshift flying apparatus, now at age 19 I have broken that promise.

Even as I got into my teens, I have not been able to escape the dreams of flight. I often wake up remembering myself soaring high above my house, feeling the wind rushing past my ears and drying my eyes. But dreams are a cruel substitute for the real thing; always giving me a taste of the sensation but never satisfying my appetite. In my dreams I am in the park outside of my house. I take a running start, and then leap, catching a draft of air and climbing up, up, up into the sky. I hover before assuming the superman position and speeding around in circles, passing low to the ground, performing loops and acrobatics. But as the dream progresses, my new found powers are sapped by the rising sun outside my window. I being to lose my speed and falter; it feels as if I am in a car that is running out of gas. As I pass lower to the ground my imaginary engine sputters and I scrape against the ground before momentarily regaining lift. But I can feel the inevitability of complete failure; and my fears land me back in the park, where I find myself on the ground, repeating the running start, leaping up, grasping for that indescribable feeling, trying to recapture just a taste of the magic that I had felt. I am unsuccessful. I have been grounded.

Despite my many letdowns I am determined to keep hope alive, and always search for that momentary exhilaration; the weightless feeling that takes the place of all worries, fears, and uncertainty, and leaves you unburdened. That was what gave me the motivation and courage to jump from a 100 meter bridge into a ravine, with nothing but a rope to hold me to the earth. It may have only been for two seconds, but in that short time you feel all that is profound, meaningful, and meaningless in life flash through your head and spread out to your extremities, like lightning striking a pond and spreading out to the shore. It may not be the same as flying, but it's a start.


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