WOULD THAT I COULD FLY

           

"Long ago in Africa, it is said, some of the people knew magic that enabled them to fly. But when they were brought to America as slaves, they forgot the magic. All but one old man. When he could tolerate no longer the suffering of his people, he whispered the magic words and, one by one and then in flocks, the slaves rose up and flew to freedom"                                                 

             From the cover of The People Could Fly, by Virginia Hamilton.

Have you read the book with this cover?  I bought it for one of my grandchildren almost twenty years ago, and when I first saw the cover it stopped me in my tracks. You see, in my dreams I’d always been able to fly – not like Superman, but just like that. I’d just rise up and go. I know there were a few dream instances where I was cleverly avoiding something bad, but usually I just rose up and flew.  No magic words, I just flew.

One vivid dream I’ve always remembered – as best one can remember a dream – was of flying along in the high vaulting of a cathedral, swatting with my furled, black umbrella at all the huge, nasty, jeering crows that were threatening to smash the stained-glass windows. I suppose I remember this one because I know I told a few people about it.  It was weird!

I flew high for years, over the rooftops, coming down only when I was very sick with a neuritis that numbed me from my toes on up.  My dreams seem to have reflected my symbolically grounded state.  Ah, but though I couldn’t rise up, I could always skim the ground lickety-split* through the remembered but always mutating towns that are the regular landscape of my dreams. I could glide up and down staircases by just breezing my hand over the banister. I could negotiate up or down, hand-over-hand, many scaffold-like dream constructions.  Still can.

In the last few years I’ve risen up a bit again. Here and there it’s just a few feet. Only a few times have I been above the treetops.  I love to watch those aerial travel programs like the Smithsonian’s current series Aerial America, or the series Baltic Coasts on HD Net.  Perhaps seeing all that aerial activity has raised my dream prospect – in more than one sense of the word. Perhaps in my old age I should take up hang-gliding and get high for real.  Perhaps…

*If it is still available to view, watch the lovely, Academy Award nominated short Luminaris to see how I skimmed the ground. Did they get this idea from my dreams? Thanks db for telling me about the film.