Flying or Falling

“To die will be an awfully big adventure,”
James Barrie

As a child I always wanted to fly. I would look up at the star studded sky and stare unblinking until I saw a flash of light streak across the horizon. Then I'd squeeze my eyes shut. Clench my hands into fists and whisper, “I wish I could fly.” Once a year I'd watch the candles flicker and wish again. And at 11:11 I'd say to the clock, “I wish.” I read once that James M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, said, “Life is a long lesson in humility.” And so I am also intrigued with falling. What it feels like when the wind rushes through your hair and across your ears. When your stomach leaps up. Free. Alive. So alive do I feel after the feat of falling. I feel as though birth has happened once again. And yet I feel nothing—nothing but the falling. I leap off a cliff called Diamond Head in the summertime. I whip through fifty feet of air to land in crystal water seeping from the melting snow high in the mountains. The water brings a gasping tingle to skin. I climb the rocky cliffs to fall again. When looking down at the distance I wonder if I can push myself away from the firmness under my feet. Yet I do it once again. Even when I have scars that prove that it can be a danger—I still jump. My friend and I were climbing the cliffs one summer afternoon when I encountered a a broken bottle on the ledge. I had no where to go. I tried to go around and slipped. Down I went.
“Aaaaamy!” My friend screamed. Down to the sharp ridges of stone resting dangerously in shallow water. I fell fifteen feet slicing gashes down to the tendons of my feet and ankles. Red splashed against the gray rock. Droplets slowly blended in the water. I watched my tendon move as I wiggled my toes. Then I swam. I swam till I found a place I could climb up without any difficulty. And when I left the water I also left red footprints. When I reached the top I collapsed and bare chested guys and girls in bikinis swarmed around me.
One guy laughed, “Want to smoke a bowl before you go to the ER?” Another handed me a pure white towel. I wrapped my feet in it. I could see the red slowly seeping through. Staining it.

“I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg,”
James Barrie

The greatest feat of falling was when I was seven years old. I convinced myself that I was able to leap from the hayloft door. It lay far up in our old red barn. I climbed the ladder past the horses and meowing kittens. Hay dust drifted softly in the dim sunlight when I swung the heavy hayloft door open. I looked down at the fields and the trees. I could see the house and my playhouse. I could see my sandbox and the garden. I could see my favorite oak tree and the red hammock swinging freely. And then I jumped out. The young bravery of my leap is inexplicable to me. I cannot decide whether it was pure idiocy or whether part of me just needed to try to be free. I may not know, but when I fell I do know that I was alive. I looked up at the hayloft door. I propped myself up on an elbow and tried to see the house. But I couldn't anymore. So I screamed for my mother. When I was down among the horse manure I felt more than a hurting leg. I had just learned fear. Now I am grown up and I have begun to fear the falling. It's harder to let go and just let it happen. I clench my fists. Hold on. I scream and I yell. I understand the consequences and the sheer pain of it. And I fight the falling.

“Strength instead of being the lusty child of passions, grows by grappling with and subduing them,” James Barrie

In Africa I would walk the red dirt roads with chattering friends. We'd skip and gather in a group. I'd tell of my old home in the states and they'd tell me theirs. I'd teach them how to swing dance and they'd show my a tribal dance.They'd tell me of Sarah and how she had let go and now was pregnant but unmarried. With down-turned faces they'd say, “She has sinned.” And on we'd walk—past banana and mango trees. Past the woman cooking Foo Foo and Jama Jama outside her mud house. We'd sit out in a field and pick long pieces of grass. We'd weave them together. They'd show my how to make a simple basket.
The birds twittered brightly one morning out on my front lawn. Bright pink Hibiscus flowers on the bushes. But before I knew my back was flat on sparse lawn and black faces all around me. All looking worried and afraid. They chattered even faster in Lamnso, so I didn't understand until one finally said, “Amy, you've fallen.” They helped me into the house and down the hallway to my room. I could see my lacy curtains flowing softly against the barred windows. I could see my light blue bedspread, but I couldn't quite make it. I fought, but I fainted once more. I fought the falling. I fought as hard as I could. But failed. Sickness. Weakness of body. It finally had broken me down till I had to fall again.

“We never understand how little we need in this world until we know the loss of it,”
James Barrie.

Falling is an adrenaline rush. Perhaps that is what takes me in and makes me yearn for more. It's the rush, the excitement, and the beautiful heart-pounding. My heart pounded as walls crashed around me during a tornado. I curled up in a bathtub as glass broke, doors flew across rooms, and walls disappeared. The wind whipped through the building, pounding dirt and rubble against the pillow over my head. Fear? No time for fear. The tornado ripped through my life in seconds. When I finally braved the outdoors, the walls of my home were at my feet. I walked over glittering glass, bended metal, and crushed concrete. But when then I laughed. It wasn't that I had lost nothing. It wasn't that I was not worried about the safety of others. I cannot explain it. I felt as that child long ago jumping out of the hayloft door. I felt invincible. I had just looked at death and survived. I saw buildings fall, but I had not fallen.

“If you have love you don't need to have anything else. If you don't have it it doesn't matter much what else you do have,”

James Barrie

The biggest fall was not sky diving or an air plane crashing. It's simply cliché. I fell in love. It sounds foolish when I read the words or say it aloud. But I fell. It was exhilarating. But then it was pure pain after I landed. I see pictures. I see a smile. I see this and I hate myself. I hate myself for seeing that. I don’t want to see anything. I just want to be me. I was okay. I was purely and blissfully and gleefully happy. But I had forgotten everything and for a moment was absolutely wonderful. I then remembered. I then thought about him for just one moment. I thought that maybe he would write me a note for my birthday. But no note came. And then I was unhappy. I could only think of the way he moves and the way he talks. And after I think about it I am miserable. Not because of how wonderful he is, but because I can’t stop myself for picturing this inside my head. I can’t stop myself from doing what I most desperately don’t want to do. I don’t want to drag myself though the think slime of this. I don’t want to be covered in this mud.

“The secret of happiness is not in what one likes to do, but in what one has to do,”
James Barrie

I remember this time when I was sick. I had been sick for a week. I spread my sickness to my dad and so he was sick in bed too. It was a late winter night. Our horses had not been fed because the two caretakers were both sick. My mom does not feed the horses. Well these poor horses were so hungry they escaped the muddy corral in search of food. I had to get out of my warm bed and chase them down. After chasing them down, I got them back in their corral and put hay out for them. By this time my head was light and I was wheezing with exertion. I could not see straight. The mud in the corral was thick and gooey. It was filled with manure and piss from the horses. It climbed high upon my boots. Up past my ankles. Even my calves in some places. Well as I was trudging through I suddenly could walk no more and everything went black. Even blacker then that dark December night. When I awoke I was deep within the muck. It was all around me. I rolled over to my hands and knees and dragged myself out and onto the pavement. I lay on the cement and wept. I was covered. And feeling miserable. Sick. I threw up and tried to slop off some of the mud on my arms. I finally raised enough strength to find my bed once more. I lay back down and fell fast asleep. This muck I am dragging myself through. This awful dirt. I lie in it. I fall in it. And when I finally drag myself out I sleep in it. If only I would finally leave it all behind.

“Dreams do come true, if we only wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it,” James Barrie

And so I always fall. After my first great fall I swore I would not be so stupid again. But I did not foresee that life is always about falling—always jumping, rarely flying, mostly falling. I still want to jump. I still dream of jumping out and seeking after that freedom. I dream of leaping. Perhaps I don't really dream of falling but of flying. But isn't flying falling sometimes? All things must come down. And so we all fall down. Someday maybe I will fly. Maybe someday I will get my wish. Perhaps some starry night I will finally fly away and be free among the tree tops. I will feet the whisk of leaves upon my clothes as I rush past, but perhaps I will fly even higher and feel the whisp of clouds floating by.

“Let no one who loves be unhappy, even love unreturned has its rainbow,”
James Barrie