Five of us followed the guy in orange onto the Logan tarmac. Smell of sea, whine of jet engine, and three tiny planes, parked parallel to one another, pointing--east? We climbed the steps into the plane. I fell into a seat two seats back from the pilot. I hadn't slept all night, after having taken a late night train from Philly to Boston. The pilot asked me to move forward, just to balance out the weight. The pilot shifted a gear, and his elbow bumped my knee. Maybe it was that bump. Maybe it was inside a vehicle about to do an outlandish thing, something not quite right. The experience of being inside a jet takes a lot of the intimacy away. You are up so high that the earth below looks like an abstraction, and that's less threatening. Not so in a little plane. Maybe that's why I felt something shift inside me, and my eyes filled. Or maybe it was because I was suddenly back in my old Provincetown life, thirteen years before, when I took that plane so many times--when it was cheap enough to do that, before 9/11--that I took those trips for granted. What is Time? An old question, but I felt it crack through me.
Then we were up in the air, out over the water. No higher above the bay, I swear, than my 21st story apartment above the dinge of Philadelphia. So low you could practically smell it. Someone said there might be whales out there, and sure enough I saw a humpback, a long, brown island poised between two whale watch boats, as if three vehicles were conspiring on the performance. Then the golden hook of Long Point, studded with pine. Then the little strip of bleached asphalt. Down, down, bump of wheel on airstrip, plane jerks to one side, gets on track again, forward, slower, round the corner to the terminal, where my old friends Polly and Oren happened to be inside--and maybe I was just dreaming this, after having been up all night--but I swear they said, yay!
(More soon--I apologize for the dearth of posts. I've been writing a lot, which feels like the right thing right now.)
9 comments:
i'm always excited to see your posts. i, too, have been doing quite a bit of writing. it does feel good.
Glad you're writing, Nancy. Thanks.
' An old question, but it felt it crack through me.'
possibly
'An old question, but I felt it crack through me.'
powerful writing Paul,
and the day is always more interesting for one of your posts.
Thanks, David. I can't believe what ends up here sometimes before I see a mistake (or a mistake is called to my attention). I see something different from what's on the screen, and occasionally the unconscious has a mind of its own. Either that, or I type too fast.
Paul. my experience is that as most writing' is a matter of 'sounding' first- the mind speaking it as i type to viscerally register the architecture, rythmn and pace of my words, i've often missed such slips on re-reading as the mind assumes- replaying an aproximation of the original experience. That's why i personally need a distance before serious, profitable revision- which of course isn't always possible lol.
Wonderful to have read of your resolve to get back to posting.
You brought back a special memory to me. When I was a kid, my dad got his pilot's license. He purchase a small 4-seater Piper Cub he took me up one day, and the new perspective completely changed my view of my surroundings on the ground.
Thank you for pulling up the memory.
The nature of time is a question that has been cracking through me on a daily basis lately. Or, if there is a multiverse, can I think my way into a parallel reality of my own choosing?
I find looking at something through a new set of eyes, a new perspective, is such a good thing for me. It forces me to 'see' differently -- sometimes nothing happens but sometimes, amazing things happen with a new view.
I love the blog but I love your writing more, so...
This is beautiful, however.
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