Wings

As a child, I had the unswerving belief that I could fly. My first memories of my attempts at flight were at the top of the narrow stairs of my family's rented row house. I would reach up placing my hand on the smooth, oak banister, look down the angle of steps to the flat, varnished landing, take a nervous breath, back up for the taxi, rev forward, spread my arms, and leap. For a brief instant, there was flight. The painful landings did little to deter me or shake the feeling that I surely could fly if I practiced enough. My father, dismayed at my repeated launches, would only shake his head sadly.

My fledgling wings were clipped on a radiant summer's afternoon of my fifth year. Loaded with ripe fruit and sun warm vegetables, the huckster's truck sagged against the curb. Through the screen door, I observed my mother's practiced sniffing and prodding of the huckster's wares. His old, blue truck, it wide bed enclosed in rough hewn slats, loomed-- a challenge , an obstacle which could be flown over. I opened the screen door and revved towards the truck. My attention fixed, my arms spread. I launched off the curb. Somehow I missed my target, landing on the bumper of a long, gray car. I think it was more a case of me hitting the car than of the car hitting me. The injuries I incurred were not substantial; my mother's hysteria was.

So ended my childish attempts at flight, but the belief that, if somehow I had tried hard enough and long enough, lingers, a drifting feather in my memory; and occasionally I lament some glorious, soring height never reached.