I’ll Fly Away

Icarus watched as his father pressed another feather into the wax.  The wings, almost complete, lay across Daedalus’ lap as soft and white as the finest wool, a garment worthy of a prince.  With tentative fingers, the boy brushed the plumes and marveled. Could such beauty truly be the means of their escape?  Would they finally leave this prison of brambles and shadows?  Icarus could scarcely remember what it felt like to stand in the full light of day.  It was always dark in the labyrinth and they had been trapped here for so long. With his heart pounding, the boy flexed the muscles along his shoulders.  Soon his father would lift the wings onto his back.  Soon, he would raise his arms and soar toward the heavens.  As if reading his son’s thoughts, Daedalus stood.  “Pay heed to my words, boy,” he said.  “You must not fly too high for the sun will soften the wax and you will drop like a stone into the sea.  But you must not fly too low, dear child, or the waves will snatch you out of the air.” “I’ll remember, father,” Icarus replied, but already the sky above glimmered, calling to him to fly up and up and into the light.  Inspired by the Greek myth of Icarus and Daedalus.

Each cloudless morning in our farmhouse was like the second coming, as the first soft promise of dawn surrendered to the exultation of full-blown sunlight, touching fire to every window pane and dust mote until the house seemed lit by an inner flame. On one such morning, when I was fifteen or so, I awoke to find my room flooded with light so pure, so golden, my bedroom walls glowed.  As I lay in my bed marveling at the light, I realized the world around me was completely still. No kitchen cupboard clatter, no screen door bang, no father soft whistle as he shattered the dewdrops on his way to the barn. Just myself in silence en-clouded in that beautiful light like a Michelangelo cherub. Maybe if I had been wiser, I would have breathed in the life universal suspended in that moment. Maybe I would have tasted paradise and been assimilated into an understanding of all that was and is and shall be, with an appreciation and awareness of my breath and your breath and every breath since time began. But I was, after all, a farmer’s daughter and practicality always took precedence over the profound and I thought (honest to God, this is what I thought) either I’ve woken up much too early or this is the end of the world.  Whichever it is, I’m going to need more sleep. And I rolled over and closed my eyes.

It has taken me most of a lifetime to become a morning person, to fall in love with the first rays of sunlight, to appreciate the celebratory stagecraft of dawn as it lifts the night revealing every shape and color, giving the familiar a fresh out of the box appeal.  When I was young, the early hours didn’t seem so precious and I much preferred to spend those moments dreaming.  But now I ache to move in the nip of early day.  And I jealously guard each morning that is my own to map.  Could it be that as the number of mornings allotted to me rapidly reduces each becomes dearer? Whatever the reason, I rejoice in my new relationship with Eos.  We are BFFs, if not “forever” at least for as long as I can pull these crotchety bones from beneath the bedcovers and slip into her company.

With dawn as my companion, I feel enveloped in the promise of the day.  Here is my clean slate and, if I am brave and pure of heart, I can create something beautiful and good out of the next 24 hours. Solar-powered and invincible, I lift my feathery wings ready to defeat gravity and challenge the heavens.  No more will I stay trapped in the shadowy prison of yesterday’s disappointments.  Today is what matters, as I climb ever higher, forgetting that bravery and good intentions need the balance of wisdom and experience.  Drunk on that magnificent light, I soar as the wax softens and the feathers drift away. It takes the cold and salty shock of reality to remind me that even miracles need the raw materials of the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.

On that bright, spring morning many decades ago, I may have missed my chance to forego enrollment in the school of hard knocks—an institution that still reaches out to bruise me from time to time.  Perhaps at fifteen, or thereabouts, you can’t expect enlightenment. But at sixty-one, I continue to puzzle over the world and question why the lessons have to come so hard.  It is the puzzling that pulls me along.  It is the big questions that beckon me out into the morning for long rambles in the dewy air and intimate conversations with the Divine.  With time I’ve learned that to make the most of each new day, I have to be the child and the parent—Icarus and Daedalus—holding the exuberance of naïve delight in balance with the prudence of thoughtful understanding.  It takes the energy of the one to fuel the capacity of the other and, with luck, I’ll have enough of both.

Wide Awake

It only took the touch of his heel to appease the hungry waves.  As the water swallowed him up, calf then thigh, then all he was, Jonah could feel the sea relax, satisfied and sated.  Down he plunged and the light began to fade.  Water rushed into his nose and filled his ears. Down he fell, not trying to swim, but surrendering to the inevitable.  Irony sparked in the deepening gloom. Here in the rush of water, the pull of water, the weight of water, Jonah finally appreciated the omnipresence of the divine.  He would drown in the Lord, become one with the will of God.  Perhaps he should have gone to Nineveh straightaway, but wasn’t this so much better.  Down below, a dark shape twisted out of the shadows.  Something glinted silvery in the last of the dying light.  As the darkness within darkness came rapidly closer, Jonah closed his eyes and drifted to sleep.  (Inspired by the story of Jonah and the Great Fish.)

In early summer the central Missouri hills are a green and rolling sea, crashing against the floodplains in leafy swells; tossing my car about like driftwood on the ocean.  I had come to the hills to escape the noise of the city, the stress of the job, the frustrations of the day-to-day.  Somewhere in the sustained quiet of a country night, I hoped to rebuild my depleted energies and regroup for the next foray into responsibility.  For 48 hours, I intended to be lazy and whim-driven.  I would sip wine with lunch and get completely lost in a good book.  I would spend time in the sun and walk until my muscles ached.  For two days, I would recapture the easy smile and the unforced laugh.  For two days, my life was my own and the world was a beautiful place.

View of the fountain at The Conservatory in Augusta, Missouri

When immersed in the luxury of free time, I like to delude myself that if I could live my whole life the way I live my vacation, I would never be stressed or angry.  My stomach wouldn’t cramp when the phone rang and my insomnia would slouch out the door, leaving no forwarding address. Being adrift in a sea of self-determination would be a pleasure cruise that never ended and my golden years would be spent sipping pina coladas and contemplating the sunset.

Like that’s going happen.

I am a worrier of long standing.  Looking at photos of myself as a little girl, I see the same anxiety-pinched forehead that still greets me in the mirror each day.  In fact I think of myself as a pinched-person, someone who lives in perpetual mid-flinch, wearing a life that feels two sizes too small. This cramped disposition affords me a special affinity for the ancient prophet, Jonah.  Here was a guy so crabbed and cranky, he couldn’t join the celebration when an entire city dodged annihilation.  Even his Boss was bemused.

Like Jonah I sometimes tend to get lost in the weeds, fretting over the health of one shriveled beanstalk and ignoring the profusion of the garden.  Though he covered a lot of territory in his travels, Jonah’s perspective never stretched farther than the end of his nose. By focusing on his anger, he missed the miraculous.  During times of stress, I’ve caught myself mistaking my point of view for the general consensus and projecting my personal disappointments on the world at large.  I forget that where I see chaos, others see opportunities; where I see clouds covering the sun, others see the promise of rain.  My little vacation in May gave me a chance to catch my breath and reorient.  Ironically, two days of solitude reminded me how broad is the horizon and how varied is the view. I came home with the desire to live every day with a vacation outlook and not let the grindstone become my only vista.  To paraphrase John Cage, “(my) intention is to affirm this life, not to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply to wake up to the very life (I’m) living, which is so excellent once one gets one’s mind and desires out of its way and lets it act of its own accord.” Wide Awake by Katy Perry

Straw Into Gold

Alone in the forest, Rum lit a fire.  The flame pushed back the darkness and cast dancing shadows beneath the trees.  Rum loved the night.  The darker the better.  Overhead an owl hooted a forlorn invitation, a sound that tugged at Rum’s own loneliness.  But remembering his plan and the desperation of the queen, he brightened.  By the time the sun set on one more day, he would have a companion.  Someone to listen to his stories and drive away the melancholy.  It made Rum want to sing.  “What’s the harm,” he said to the night.  “There’s no one here but me, Rumpelstiltskin.”  At the sound of Rum’s voice, something skittered away in the leaves.  Rum held his breath and listened.  Perhaps, he wasn’t alone.  “You’re being foolish,” he said.  “It’s just a mouse.  Watch out, Mousie!  Old Man Owl’s hungry for a bedtime snack.”  He laughed and hooted as he danced around the fire.  Then he begin to sing.  Rum had set all of his secrets to music.  Tomorrow night, if his new guest was very good, he would sing to him.  Success was so close, he could almost smell the baby powder.  (Variation on the fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin”)

My downstairs neighbor likes onions.  I know this because, at the oddest times, their pungent smell billows from my vents and saturates the air in my apartment.   Candles and air freshener barely tame the potency as each new cycle of the furnace or AC adds a fresh blast of oniony perfume.  The worst occurs when she cooks late in the evening and the aroma of Allium cepa blankets the air in my bedroom.  It’s offensive and upsetting and it reminds me that the life I’m living isn’t much like the life I want.  It’s times like these that I have to remind myself of Rumpelstiltskin and the danger of disappointment.

The story of the miller’s daughter and the strange little man who spins straw into gold is a tale about wanting.  The miller wants the favor of the king.  The king wants massive amounts of gold.  The maiden wants to survive.  And the little man really just wants someone to keep him company.  Fueled by horror movies and macabre fireside stories, I used to believe Rumpelstiltskin wanted the baby as the main course for his evening meal.  But in Germany where the Grimm brothers collected this tale, imps were portrayed as lonely creatures who craved human attention.  Knowing this, Rumpelstiltskin’s motives lost their evil overtones and I begin to have a little compassion for the short-sighted creature.  Of all the characters in the story, he is the only one willing to help the others reach their desires, but his assistance comes at a price.  In the end, it is Rumpelstiltskin who is left disappointed and in his disappointment he self-destructs.  

Of all of the fairy tales I’ve read across the course of my life, this one tweaks at my conscience in a very real way.  I’m sure I’ve played all of these characters, shifting from miller to king to maiden to imp, as I’ve single-mindedly gone after my own desires while ignoring the needs of others.   Day after day, the drama of dueling agendas plays itself out at our jobs, in our friendships and in our families, and like it or not, someone always walks away empty-handed and hurt.  We all take our turns at being Rumpelstiltskin.   As Mark Nepo says, “Sometimes we can’t get what we want.  While this can be disappointing and painful, it is only devastating if we stop there.”

With each disappointment comes an opportunity and a decision.  We can choose to stop where we are–one leg buried in the ground up to our thigh and our hands around the other pulling with all our might.  Or we can find a way to move forward.  I imagine that Rumplestiltskin’s story could have ended much differently.  Reaching out to the queen as a friend, and heavens knows she needed one, might have turned this story into one that ended happily ever after.  Or as Mick Jagger eloquently puts it, “you can’t always get what you want…but if you try sometimes, you find, you get what you need.”