By Adagio
The snowflakes are falling silently. I can see them through the window, little white dots drifting down, sticking to the grass and the sidewalk and my car. The sky is grey and cloudy, and I am drawn closer, compelled to stand up and walk over to the window so I can have a better view. I visualize myself flying through it, black and shining, contrasting sharply with the sparkling white landscape beneath me. I am swirling with wings outstretched and the biting cold air is forcing me to keep moving, keep moving. Then I open my eyes and I am still standing next to the window, one hand raised with fingers touching the icy glass, my feet planted firmly on the ground, featherless, undeniably human.
The crow in my head preens his feathers, waiting to see my reaction. In a way, the idyllic winter scene outside my window is compelling, and makes me want to just disappear into the clouds, glossy-stiff feathers propelling me forward… but I am human, and so vulnerable to cold. A shiver runs down my spine as I think about it. So the crow fluffs up his feathers, and I wrap a scarf around my neck and zip up my jacket (but that doesn’t stop me from dreaming) and I have no choice but to restlessly await spring so I can fly.
[feb. 2007]
Call me crazy. I get the opposite of what most survival instincts will tell you.
Find warmth! Eat a lot of food! Hibernate! Fly south!
Nope.
Fly! Fly! Fly! is what I hear.
My computer desk is situated facing the wall, and the door that leads to our back yard (our back yard is a parking lot – we live in an apartment) is to my right. I keep glancing out as I write this, pausing, sometimes for minutes at a time, to look at the 8+ inches of snow and the sleet that is sprinkling gently against the windowpanes.
This is not a sparkly, crystalline, entrancing winter – this is grey, cloudly, wet, bitter cold, windy, completely unbearable… and completely alluring. The cold is invigorating. The cold makes you want to keep moving! keep going! keep flying!
Call me crazy. But I sit here at my desk, making numerous typos because all I can focus on is the snow and flying, flying, flying, and the invisible wings that grow from my shoulder blades are itching to be used – but I can’t, because it’s not real, the feeling of wings and feathers. What’s real is this desk and this computer and these hands. So instead of flying off through the cold like the crazypersonbird I am, I sit here typing about flying off through the cold, because it’s the next best thing.