I have a tendency to obsess and worry about what people might think or say, so to put this first one up here freaks me out quite a bit; but it also forces me to move forward. I do hope you like it.
LEARNING TO FLY
On a suffocatingly hot day, smack in the middle of August, 1973, a twelve year old boy sat in the back seat of his family's car. It was the kind of day that you remember when you think back about a summer day from your childhood. The air smelled an earthy mix of fresh cut grass and wildflowers, and the sun sat high in the sky, causing the stores and homes to splash shadows across the sidewalks on both sides of Main Street. In the background, the steamy buzz of the cicadas told you what you already knew.
They boy’s bare legs were sweaty and sticky on the black fabric of the car’s seat and he was restless and uncomfortable. His window was open and his arm lay draped over the edge of the aluminum molding that housed the inside of the opened window frame. He stretched his palm out, facing down, cupped his hand and held his fingers tight together, with thumb pointing forward. If he tried real hard he could find the right balance - the point where his arched hand sliced through the humid air with the least amount of resistance and seemed to float there, free of gravity's pull and free from the push of the headwind created by the motion of the car.
(Image courtesy of State of CT website)
Staring closely at his hand he remembered that his dad had once told him that this was how an airplane was able to fly, and that his small hand was no different than the wings on the massive steel birds that flew so far above them. His father, who seemed to always have a better understanding, said the hand split the air in half, and that because of the way the hand was cupped, the wind going above it moved faster than the wind moving below. The differences in air speed created differences in pressure above and below his hand, which created 'lift.' The boy struggled to find the spot where the air lifted his hand and held it aloft, and when he found it he struggled to hold it there. Balance, in all things, can be a difficult to find and to maintain.
The boy craned his neck out of the car window, causing the roaring wind to slap him in the face and blow his bangs up wildly. He squinted into the onrushing air as it thundered in his ears and watched a small, silvery jet set against a clear blue sky. Just the simple act of leaning out and into the maelstrom of air currents was enough to throw off the balance of his hand. It bounced up and down like a kite out of control, and if it were not attached at his wrist, his hand would have crashed down onto the pavement and bounced its way to a lonely stop, no different than if it were an empty soda can tossed from the speeding vehicle. The boy pulled his head back in the window and he worked to find the balance point again, thinking all the while of how one slight twitch and his 'wing' went out of control. He wondered how something as giant as an airplane could be subject to the same principles as his own little fleshy hand. His father's words about the symmetry between these two incongruous things now seemed dubious, at best.
(photo courtesy of Autophoto)
The boy, his sister, and his parents were riding in a 1968, Green Volkswagen Squareback Wagon. There is no need to describe the vehicle's features any further because its name is also its definition. His parents bought this car because they were practical people. The American automobile industry was in the throes of young adulthood and testosterone and ego lay behind the design and purchase of most cars on the road at that time. The stout 1970 Cobra, the mean ’69 Dodge Charger, and the bullet shaped Pontiac Trans Am - with its sleek lines, shiny paint job, and Bird of Fire emblem - were just a few of the lean and mean American muscle cars that laid patches of rubber on a nationwide sea of sand and gravel. The late 1960’s and early 1970’s were the time of the great American Automobile Allure; to everyone, so it seemed, but the boy’s parents.They liked the idea of being different than everybody else; of quietly putting around at their own pace while the rest of the world roared by in a hurry. The boy’s parents cared little of what others thought, and more often than not, they believed that different was better. Foreign cars were few, and the German Squareback was an oddity. The Volkswagen Company produced 860,000 Squarebacks in twelve years of production, and his family's car was one of a kind in their small but busy coastal New England town. But it gave the boy’s parents a sense of pride and fulfilled their need for function over form.
The family car, while not the preferred means of transportation, provided the boy with an escape from life as he knew it; a chance to see how other people lived their daily lives and to observe the makeup of their surroundings. It mattered little where he went, so long as he went somewhere – the town dump swarming with the stench of things people no longer wanted, the grocery store with the “smiley lady” who punched prices into the cash register with her stubby fingers, or a trip to the beach after supper when the sun set and night washed over the land. These were all places with new people to watch and new experiences to experience. Over time, the boy became more of a watcher of things than a doer of things. He found it easier to observe than to participate.
When his parents were not around, the boy would sit in the Squareback while it sat idle and in the driveway. He would pretend that he was driving to someplace he’d never been, depressing the clutch and shifting its manual transmission into each gear. He hummed to simulate the noise the engine would make, rising in volume and pitch before shifting into the next, higher gear. He watched his parents closely when they drove and he tried to mimic everything they did, including proper use of the car’s directional and hand over hand pattern when turning the black, leather-wrapped steering wheel. He learned that living in a world of fantasy can often be easier than dealing with the reality of things.
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The mechanics of his family car - of all cars - mystified him. When he glanced around at the myriad of lights, buttons, and knobs he wondered how so many small pieces and moving parts were imagined, created, and assembled. It seemed as if, all around him, new things were constantly being made, progress was happening, and people were moving forward with certainty, direction, and self-assuredness. The boy – the great observer - watched the world race by and saw others keep pace with it. Somehow, time slipped away and he was left behind.The boy grew up, and as a man things didn't change all that much. When a person matures and grows they become more of themselves, for better or for worse. In this sense the man remained very much a child. He changed physically of course, but he never roared toward his destiny like one of those muscle cars he admired as a boy. Instead, he sputtered through his life, seemingly just along for the ride. He spent more time thinking about the things that he could not do rather than doing the things that he was capable of. Fear can be an awful thing. For some it can motivate and move them forward, but for others it can cripple and calcify. For the boy who became a man, change never came easy; if it came at all.
(Photo courtesy of FinnTravers)
Like his hand that he once hung out of the car window as a twelve year old, he searched for balance as an adult. As he propelled through life he was continuously caught between the forces that pushed at him - opportunity and risk - and the forces that pulled on him - self doubt and insecurity. Even after all this time he was barely aloft and he worked hard to find his trajectory, his sense of purpose, and his ability to soar. He knew it was there, but he was tiring of his struggle to find it.
1 comment:
Well, well, well,
Is this the short-story-writing hockey player? Loved your descriptive passages and use of sense imagery. As always, I am proud to call you son (in-law).
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