Sunday, September 16, 2007

Of Departure And Arrival




I've always loved stories about being trapped, Rapunzel letting her hair down, Scheherazade spinning story after story to save her life, Bluebeard's curious new wife waiting for her brothers to save her from sure death at the hands of her husband. Because let's face it, we're all a little trapped -- by the past, by our choices, by the limitations of our minds, bodies, by money, by energy or lack thereof. Recently on an airplane, I heard a passenger getting irate with the stewardess who finally snapped and said, I only have two hands. Look around. There's a lot of people who feel just as bad as you do. Which was the truth. There were people trying to keep babies from crying and young children from flipping out from sheer boredom, there were people who looked ill and tired, the look of the airport, of departure and arrival, people trying to make conversation, people trying to avoid it. I often write letters on planes as it takes my mind off the immediate bad feeling and the strange setting usually opens me up in ways that I otherwise would not. In the strange, ironic way of life, I am free in this way to tell the truth, to write people things about myself that I could never say in person.

When I was a child, I rode in one-seater airplanes with my dad all the time. He'd put me in the part of the plane reserved for the luggage -- being a skinny child who hated to eat, I stayed under the baggage weight of eighty pounds right up until my teenage years. I loved being in the luggage area, right behind my dad who flew wherever we wanted to go. It was such a small space to be tucked into, but I didn't mind. I kept up a continual patter of conversation over the engine's roar. I already knew all about the front of the plane, the black box with all the flight information, the controls. The one time my dad let me take over the controls, I sent us right into a nosedive. He laughed and pulled us out. I was never afraid; there wasn't much he couldn't fix. I didn't feel trapped then, just protected. Even though I couldn't move much, there wasn't anywhere I wanted to go.

Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Of what is past, or passing, or to come." William Butler Yeats

Cocktail Hour
Drinking television show suggestion: Tell Me You Love Me It's a little depressing, not big on the ha has! and very sexually graphic, but realistic enough to make you squirm a bit as you watch, enough to need a drink.

Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Emmy's Night! Good luck to all The Sopranos cast! And a special shout out from Baby Grouchie goes to his special friend, Whitey the Bear! Happy Sunday to all!

9 comments:

Unknown said...

very wise proverb

Charles Gramlich said...

I've never liked small, tight spaces. I've been as trapped by life as anyone at times, but I still wanted the illusion of space.

eric1313 said...

Good lord, I bet yuo hate airplanes. I wish you and I both could just teleport to a pce we could picture in our minds; summon up a recollection, utter a magic verse, and be gone.

I'd be using my power to get drunk and not drive, so maybe it's best that that kind of magic doesn't exist.

That last time I wrote to somebody about the the things trapped in my memory, they disapeared on me.

Nobody likes to hear or read about weakness, if they themselves are weak. Or perhaps I am to weak. Again, as you said, it's easier to write these things than let them touch your lips as words.

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the walking man said...

You know I don't think it sounds like you felt trapped in that small place of your dad's plane but rather trapped within the confines of the larger one where there plenty of people each with their own needs and desires and the one's most trapped were the sterwdi.

Once I got old enough to speak my own mind I never felt trapped by my existence, even though not in the best of personal situations during those some of times I always felt free.

But since '99 after the first fusion and the being put out to pasture and having all the things taken away from me that allowed me to feel at least I was fighting for my own freedom. During those day's I can honestly say that even when i got the shit end of the stick I was able to sleep knowing I was free.

But now with everything that has gone on medically I no longer sleep as a free man, although I can go where I will, I am trapped because I know I have to wait on certain calender days and hours and moments and then have to mooch a ride or figure out this crazy ass bus system, all of which makes my,yes Michelle, old lady trapped as well.

I hate this cartoon life that circumstance has imposed on me, I want to feel the winds of the desert one more time and the chill of a cold mountain stream running swift with fresh snow melt again, the endless miles of cornfields taller than me and even smell the stench of low tide at one of the ocean beaches again, I want to see these things not just in the comfortable luggage compartment of my mind revisiting them.

I want to feel them again and now that I am trapped, caged, shackled to a calender,I want them again now more than ever. Even if I never get to them again I want the option at my discretion to go to them, even if I have to travel cargo class.

Freedom

mark

Lynn@ZelleBlog said...

Yes, many feel trapped. By their circumstances. Or the limits in their head.

eric1313 said...

Just wrote this earlier tonight; brought it by for no particular reason.


The Moon Loves You, Baby
E1313

Just looked outside my window,
at Luna swinging so very low,
over the horizon and treetops
looming as big as the houses
only inches beneath
her gold harvest glow.

I'll walk to her; watch me,
the distance closed
to a conspiratorial wink.

I leap to the tree tops
and flip-spin ninja quick
to her silver, still land.

Watch me:
I'll take that old moonmobile
that the spacemen double parked,
keys dangling in the ignition
for a joyride; circles, spirals
victory turns, round forever,
dust kicking up in clouds
made of pure-silver lining.

Luna and me laughing in love--
rolling in ticklish madness,
while the aliens of the earth
make wild ghost story guesses
as to why she glows so gilded
in this cool breeze autumn night.

Anonymous said...

hmmm... looks like Doddy dearest left some big shoes to fill, sveetie. No wonder you are still unattached, despite your matronly visage.

eric1313 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.