Terrible Memories – Grounded

Here, let me open my soul to you so you can mock it.

I was not a hard-core science fiction geek as a teen/pre-teen, but I could hold my own. I was a Star Trek and Star Wars fan, and since we didn’t have cable – the BBC (on PBS) provided me with Doctor Who and “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. HHGttG got me started on reading Douglas Adam’s series, the very best part is in the third book, when Arthur Dent discovers how to fly.

In a nutshell, you fall down but get distracted and forget to hit the ground.

I loved that!! I believe that’s when the flying dreams started, because I simply loved the idea of being able to fly. Usually the dreams started as running, with longer and longer bouncing strides, until I was eventually airborne.

Warning: Soul-mocking moment ahead:

So, I was in our backyard on the swing set(I was a lonely pre-teen), and I was looking at the crooked trunk of a small tree. “This is it,” I told myself. The universe had collapsed into this one crystal-clear moment and I knew that if I ran at that tree and jumped off the trunk, I would be flying! This was it – good-bye, gravity.

I ran.

I jumped.

I fell.

I looked around in embarrassment.

(I still believed.)