Further to Fly

There may come a time
When you’ll be tired,
As tired as a dream that wants to die.

This is how I see my blog: a dream that wants to die. In keeping it alive, I’m fighting against many hooded blessings: motherhood, wifehood, daughterhood, employee-hood, community volunteer-hood. I push open a heavy door, time and again, to create space for creativity and self-expression, but lately my arms are jelly, straining against dead weight.

Further to fly

Today I’m writing from an airplane, far from the comforts of my kitchen. Get to the meeting, get back home, do all that must be done – all while resisting that undulating death urge. “Kill the blog!” it says. “There’s simply no time.”

Maybe you will find a love
That you discover accidentally
Who falls against you gently
As a pickpocket
Brushes your thigh

This blog is my mid-life love affair, an escape from the challenges coming at me from all angles, every waking minute. I cling to it senselessly. I write in my head, when there’s no pen or laptop in sight.

Effortless music from the Cameroons
The spinning darkness of her hair
A conversation in a crowded room going nowhere

Conversations that went nowhere: boy, have I had a number of THOSE lately. Hopes painted across the sky, ideas articulated cleverly, plans listed in great detail. In the end, they went nowhere. The sting of rejection is unlike any other.

The open palm of desire
Wants everything
It wants everything
It wants everything

“The open palm of desire,” reminds me of a meditation pose: palms open, resting on one’s lap. Desire makes me open and receptive, but also creates hunger and longing. Flying has always been a metaphysical experience for me.

Sometimes I’ll be walking down
The street and I’ll be thinking
Am I crazy
Or is this some morbid little lie?

Excellent question, Paul.

Are we crazy? Or is this some morbid little lie that people gun down children in school and we do absolutely nothing about it?

Further to fly
Further to fly
Further to fly
A recent loss of memory
A shadow in the family
The baby waves bye-bye

Wait. How did you know about mom’s recent diagnosis? How did you perceive my baby’s subtle changes into womanhood? Is it that your heart has broken once, as mine is now, watching a precious woman through your hands?

I‘m trying, I‘m flying

Yes, I am trying alright! I am trying desperately to create hope – for myself and for others. I have joined Amnesty International. I’ve begun “writing for rights.” I’ve joined Everytown for Gun Safety, and also Doctors Without Borders. I’ve made phone calls on behalf of a Rosa Maria, the seven-year old child detained, threatened with deportation, and separated from the comfort of her own mother after an emergency surgery. I’ve collected and redistributed the fruit that Northwest Fresnans didn’t want before it rotted. I’ve done all of this, and now I’m flying. I’m flying to another meeting, that is. And then I’m flying home.

There may come a time
When I will lose you
Lose you as I lose my light
Days falling backward into velvet night

The knowledge of impending loss is so hard to bear. How desparately I want to hold onto my light, defy my blog’s inner death-wish. Above all, I want to find the will to keep pushing open the heavy door to creativity, to life.

The open palm of desire
Wants everything
It wants everything
It wants soil as soft as summer
And the strength to push like spring

“Further to Fly” was written by Paul Simon • Copyright © Universal Music Publishing Group