Forgetting To Fly

I always knew I could fly.

I saw my life on earth from an aerial view. I didn’t have wings, at least when I was seven years old I didn’t. I would just run and jump into the sky with no effort at all. I didn’t flap my arms, either. I just jumped up, leading with my chin. The higher I would go the more brilliant the blue sky would become. I would breathe in the crystal clear sapphire that would saturate my body and mind with a peace and calm beyond understanding.
I loved it up there. The blue was more intense than any pigments you would find on earth. It was as though a dull film covered the hues down there. When I was up, the colors were radiant, luminous, penetrating.

     And I was weightless, flying over the familiar streets with trees and driveways and porches. I would see my neighborhood as interlocking houses, yards, and sidewalks filled with kids on their way to school, some of them rushing to be there before the tardy bell rang. I remembered wondering why they wouldn’t fly like me. Didn’t they know how easy it was? It came so natural to me…so why not them? Surely they would fly if they could, but I never thought to ask them. When I returned to earth, I would immediately be launched into the classroom’s commotion of daily activity.

     As time went on, never-ending circumstances encircled my life and I forgot to fly. That was more than fifty years ago. I was plunged into my life’s hectic journey shortly after that last flight, isolating myself from the remembering.
The hurry and hardship made me forget.
Or, did it?

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