Over the last two weeks, I have been witness to flying…people flying. I am not talking of the many airplanes in the sky that I observe over my house which sits quite near the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. I am talking of humans lifting off the ground and flying…like birds. The freedom of it is still thrumming in my spirit.

The first was at the performance of Peter Pan at the Ordway Center for Performing Arts. This reworking of the story that first inched its way into my life as a small child was pure magic. Though I knew the actors were not really flying, I could not see the wires which lifted and catapulted them into the air. The exuberance and delight on their faces and those in audience lifted me above the ordinary of a late December evening. As Peter urged us to clap our hands and say “I believe.” to bring Tinkerbell back from the brink, I knew I was also saying I believe in the power of flight.

Then in yet another tale meant for children but with messages for adults to ponder, the movie Wonka also had characters taking flight. Some of them were exercising their power of imagination and fancy while others were sent up in the air as a kind of time out for bad behavior. Sitting in the darkened theater I again felt that sense of freedom the idea of flying brought to me.

The truth is I have been captured by the idea of flying more than once in my life. When I was just a young child, perhaps three or four years old, I was in the upstairs of my grandparents house with them and my parents. They were moving something up into the second story of the house and had the window open to allow its entry. While they were busy talking I walked to that window and saw my opportunity. I stepped up and was just about to launch myself off the ledge when my Dad grabbed megrim behind and pulled me back. Since the night before we had watched Mary Martin flying as Peter Pan on the yearly broadcast of the movie, I believed I could fly and I was going to give it my best shot. Clearly imagination and reality collided.

For many years I had a recurring dream in which I would be in a situation in which tension was high and I wanted to escape. The situations differed but the feeling was the same: Get Out of Here! In the dream I would begin running and then I would use my arms in a swimming motion and soon…very soon I was lifted above the ground and was hovering over whatever was causing me such turmoil. I had escaped because I could fly.

It is a new year and though I am fairly certain the ability to fly is not in the cards for 2024, I was delighted to see this excerpt from a Mary Oliver poem: 

“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things.
I want to be light and frolicsome.
I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing,
as though I had wings.” 

I am not much for resolutions in the new year but this lovely, playful poem seems not too bad to shape an intention for the year. Many people are remarking that it could be a tough year given all that is happening in the world and the political climate in which we find ourselves. Perhaps imagined flying could be a gift. So…Noble. Light. Frolicsome. Beauty. No fear. 

As though I, as though we, had wings.