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How to Fly
By Crystal Fast
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Copyright 2002 Crystal Fast
Swirling in lazy circles, dipping, rising, gliding effortlessly through air like a well-practiced circus performer dazzling an audience of sand and endless sea. Wings outstretched with mottled white feathers that ruffle in the wind and long scaly legs tucked beneath the rounded body to lessen resistance. A long pointed beak slices the wall of flowing air currents allowing the neck and body to be borne onward and upward. Standing with my feet entrenched in the wet sand that shifts and rearranges beneath me at every lapping wave I am overcome with envy. All my life I had been searching for what the seagull achieves naturally, flight. The feeling of speed and weightlessness, the exhilaration of racing the wind, viewing the world from above the chaos and madness that is connected with having your feet on the ground.
My desire to fly goes beyond the wish of a child to be like a super hero. I never wrapped myself in a cape and launched myself off the roof to the broken bones that would await me when I landed. My first attempt came only after careful study and consideration of our rusted swing set. Its frame was made from metal tubes striped like brown and white barber poles, two large ‘A’’s on either end faced outward and were joined at their apexes by a horizontal bar. Its height seemed ominous to me as a five year old but I can remember my father resting his elbow and forearm above me as I played. The swing set consisted of a teeter-totter, two swings and a slide. I first looked at the slide as an instrument of flight. This idea was rejected after the maiden voyage crashed and burned. My legs were bare and the hot afternoon sun had warmed the metal and increased its appetite. The slide was hungry for my bare flesh and it burned and pinched bits of my legs as I haltingly inched downward. The attempt was not a complete waste as I discovered that the hardest part of attempting flight is the landing. My legs and feet were extended straight out during the journey and I was so occupied with avoiding the metal that I forget to avoid the ground. With a teeth jarring bump I realized my error and landed in the dirt.
As with most embarrassing moments in life, they are seldom private affairs. This was no exception and once I stopped focusing on the discomfort in my bottom and legs I realized that my toe-headed brother was laughing and running with arms flailing to the trailer to broadcast my latest misadventure. I decided to make him an accomplice in my efforts. This decision was not based on any feelings of goodwill but rather necessity. The teeter-totter required two people to operate and despite numerous attempts with Miss Kitty and a jump rope all that had been achieved was an angry cat that would not be tied to the seat and a clawed up jump rope.
I sometimes regret the way that I treated my brother when we were children. For a few short years until he outgrew me I was his hero. Wherever I went and whatever I did his blue eyes framed by a shock of white hair was sure to follow. He trailed after me on knobby knees and puppy feet that he would eventually grow into. He was my scapegoat, my ward, my constant companion whether I wanted company or not. It took little convincing for him to assist me in any plan that I came up with.
We attempted the teeter-totter next. He climbed onto the triangular seat opposite of mine and wrapped his legs around the footrest and curled his fingers around the center pole. As I sat facing him I wondered how this would equal flying in any way but resolved to eliminate all possibilities I pushed off by arching my body. He did the same thing and the back and forth swinging started. The more our speed increased the whiter his face became until I lost all thought of flying and instead became fascinated on how many shades of white exist. A good sister would have stopped at this point but as I lay no claim to being good, the idea of stopping never occurred to me.
That ended any attempt at enlisting my brother; he was content to watch from the sidelines for my next trial. The poles of the swing set were anchored in concrete and it was perched on a small slope. The swing was my last and final hope for some small measure of success. I sat down on the hard plastic board and wrapped my fingers around the rusty chain. I knew that my hands would be stained orange and scented with a metallic odor but I wrapped them tighter in the chains anyway. Experience had taught me not to look up while under the pole as flakes of powdered rust floated down. My bare feet pushed off from the silky dirt and I stretched my body out and closed my eyes. I could feel the wind starting to stir around me and I pumped my legs forcing myself even higher. As I raised even with the top of the swing set I felt the chains go slack then jerk again as I came down only to slacken again as I climbed. With my eyes closed I could almost imagine I was flying for real. That was when my greatest inspiration came, to let go. I timed the moment just right and when the swing could go no higher and no further I pushed off from the seat. My stomach seemed to flip and float providing me with a strange sensation that I later came to equate with takeoffs. For a few glorious seconds I was unconnected to the earth in any way. Then once again I came crashing down and the air that had been so supporting a moment ago abandoned me taking along with it the air that filled my lungs leaving me breathless and grounded. Once again I could hear my brother running for the door and see the tops of his hands flailing.
Throughout my experiments the common factor in attempting flight seemed to be speed. With this realization I armed myself with a new weapon, my bicycle. The road in front of our trailer was pocked with pot holes and covered only in a layer of dirt. Small patches of gravel lined the edges in an attempt at restricting the wild bushes that strained towards the row of grass down the center of the road. Vertical hills accompanied by kiss-your-ass-goodbye turns only increased my excitement. I never stopped to think that one large piece of gravel or a pothole hit at the wrong angle would send me flying over the handlebars. I shudder now to think of popping wheelies, plummeting brakeless down hills, breezing by cars, and the numerous other stunts that I considered fun. I discovered that at a certain speed the pedals would move by themselves and the wheels rotated faster and faster without any effort on my part. When I reached this point I would stand up and balance the bike between my knees and stretch my arms out to the side, the wind would rush by and I felt disconnected from everything around me. My reverie was usually broken by some obstacle in my path, a stick, pothole or during certain seasons the satisfying pop of a tent-worm beneath the front wheel.
The weather rarely hindered my attempts and even increased my creativity at times. Winter required me to switch vehicles from a bicycle to a sled. At my insistence, my grandfather obtained permission for my brother and I to sled ride down a neighbors cow field. This was not any ordinary cow field; it took twenty minutes of trudging through the snow to reach the top. It was a wet snow, the kind that packs down beneath the sled and if the same path is traveled over and over again it becomes as hard as a paved road. It was decided that the first trip should be a group effort. My red sled was lined up and we piled in. My grandfather was convinced to come along for the ride and we couldn’t wait to tell our parents that we had gotten grandpa in a sled. I sat in front of him and my brother sat in front of me. Last came Harley, our wiener dog. He trustingly placed his tailless black behind on my brother’s lap and we were ready to go. My grandfather used his arms to give us a push and we were off. We were starting to pick up speed rapidly and the sled flew over the snow. The white powder flew up around us, my glasses were dripping with snow and I couldn’t see anything but even if I could have seen it wouldn’t have helped. The cow field was used mostly in the summer and late fall months and as this was an early snow it had been occupied only recently. Still none of us thought about the frozen cow pies that littered the ground beneath the snow until we hit one with the front of our sled. The sled stopped immediately but we kept going. I flew through the air and landed in a pile of hats and gloves and flying limbs. My glasses attempted a solo flight in the opposite direction from my face leaving me blind and face down in the snow. The rest of our crew was just as shaken up. The dog decided that sleds were to be avoided and my brother and grandfather were caught up in the humor of the situation. Despite being shaken, I was secretly glad about the mishap because for a brief moment I had almost flown.
Until I was eighteen my experiences with flying were through my own attempts. My first flight on an airplane was from Louisville, Kentucky to Baltimore, Maryland. I was flying alone and I can remember being so excited at the thought of soaring through the air and seeing the land far below me. The inside of the plane was disappointing, but rather than viewing the cramped interior as a foreshadowing my optimism remained high. I had a window seat in the last aisle next to a sweaty businessman. While the plane taxied towards the runway he proceeded to introduce himself, offer his card and share his life history. As his ramblings about his work and kids went through one ear and out the other I twisted my head away from him to catch the scenery. We were driving over a field of cement separated by dotted lines and orange cones. A stewardess pasted a fake smile across her face and held up a seat belt as though it were a first place trophy in a beauty contest. I couldn’t hear her words but I watched her red lips move as she demonstrated floatation devices and pull down air masks. I had already read the safety card located in the back of the seat in front of me and as I looked around I realized that nobody paid any attention to the stewardess anyway. Finally we were lined up for take off and my excitement was tempered only by my fear of the unknown.
The plane headed down the runway gathering speed like a snowball trying to be a snowman. As the wheels left the ground my stomach seemed to float up and I was pushed back in my seat. We climbed upwards toward the clouds and then surpassed them before leveling off. I waited expectantly for something more, some feeling of accomplishment but it never came. I discovered that aside from take off, being in an airplane was a far cry from what I wanted flying to be. The red cushioned seats and comfortable cabin interior masked the wildness that I wanted to be part of. The rushing air, the recklessness, the feeling of being one with the wind, all the things that flying should be were covered up and glossed over until a plane ride was nothing more than a greyhound ride in the air.
Flying took on a new definition for me after that. I knew I would never be able to fly unassisted like the seagull I admired from the sand. I decided that I would settle for feeling like I was flying. I turned my attention to sports cars. The rev and rumbling of a powerful engine raised my hopes and my adrenaline. I discovered that there was a point, located somewhere between 80 and 120mph, when the wheels seemed to barely skim the pavement. The danger and excitement provided a rush almost like the high that comes from giving blood or getting a tattoo.
Only once did I manage to get a car truly airborne. Next to the bus station and on the same block as the rescue squad, lies a street that is perfect for jumping cars. Two small hills with a large dip in the middle serve as the runway and landing strip. My car was small, a Ford Escort with a V4 engine that when revved up at best sounded like a pissed off bumblebee. Knowing the car was soon headed for the junk heap, I decided to send it off with a blaze of sparks and screeching tires. I hit the first hill at 50 mph and felt the flop of my stomach as all four bald tires lost their grip on the surface. The wheels had hardly lifted before making a desperate grab for the solidity of the pavement. The chassis scraped the road and I bounced around wildly for a few seconds before regaining control. Having flown for a few seconds I re-evaluated my goal once again. I wanted to fly longer and harder. I had to feel as though I were moving through and along with the wind.
I finally found my wings when I was 21. They were not white and feathery with delicate tips but rather black metal and chrome. They came to me suddenly while I was on the back of a Honda 750. The motorcycle wasn’t new or even that powerful but it flew with all the agility and speed that I had been looking for.
The bike was long and black with gold racing stripes along the gas tank. The dual exhaust pipes were shiny chrome and clung to the rear like overgrown tomato vines. I had chosen my helmet carefully, discarding the half helmets or brain buckets and settling instead on a ¾ helmet in black of course. My fiancée turned the key and let the engine of the bike fast idle to warm up. He nodded for me to climb on the back onto the “queen’s seat”. I did so very clumsily and my feet eagerly searched for the foot rests. My knees and legs were wrapped around the outside of his thighs and I placed my hands on his sides. I could feel the engine vibrating beneath me. I realized that I was not feeling scared, rather I felt like I was anticipating something. The feeling was similar to the way I felt the night before a trip, the nervous flutter in my stomach tempered by the excitement of what lay ahead. We started with a jolt and I realized there was nothing behind me but air and pavement. I refused to tighten my grip and forced myself to relax and feel the bike beneath me. We rode slowly at first, stopping at traffic lights and stop signs. I braced my feet against the pedals to avoid sliding into my fiancée. I could feel the rubber of my tennis shoes heating up against the exhaust pipes. I had visions of my shoes melting to the chrome like clocks in a Salvador Dali painting.
We entered the 405 towards Santa Monica and I watched the speedometer climb and rising with it was my exhilaration. The wind rushed by buffeting me from all sides. I could feel the heat from the passing cars warm my legs. My exposed face tingled and vibrated and I could think was how alive I felt. I closed my eyes and savored the freedom, the speed, the adrenaline that raced through me. It came to me then, I had my way to fly. I was a penguin on the back of an eagle.
We rode up the coastline with the cliffs to our right and the ocean below us on the left. A flock of seagulls raced along with us, a gliding ‘V’ of feathers and beaks versus metal machinery. Having found the key to flying I’ve decided to buy my own set of wings. It doesn’t matter how I fly or where I go. I no longer envy the whirling dipping seagull but I see him envy me as I lean into the curves with my eyes and wings wide open.
