The Flying Machine

I’m a silly girl. A woman-girl growing inside her own womb, punching, kicking, absorbing nutrients, feeling excited, worried, and at peace, trusting that my caretaker-self won’t let her little girl down, has her best interest at heart, and would do anything to support, heal, comfort and reassure her beloved silly self. 

“It’s all going to be OK.”

This journey. This journey called LIFE. A fellow camper dropped by my glorious campsite here at Cape Lookout, Oregon, and complimented my razzle dazzle, hippy-ish set design: melon-colored prayer flags, flame-like solar hanging lights, hammock chair and my sweet Mercedes Sprinter, to which I thanked her, then offered an explanation, “Whenever I’m settled for more than a few days, I put up the flags to create a boundary of peace.” 

“Yeh, we need it, for sure, right now,” she agreed.

We chatted a bit. “Where did you get the flags?” she asked. 

“Oh, I’ve had them a long time. I used to drape them in my classroom.” They were an inspiration for a project I did one year. At the start of the school year, I’d give students a piece of white cloth and we’d make our own flags designed with metaphors that represented our inner core and values. 

“I’d lace the flags across the windows, and they became our sun catchers,” I said, elaborating, “I told students, ‘Whenever you feel challenged or lost, look at the symbols in your flag and remember who you are on the inside, your true self. ‘ ” 

The story struck my camp neighbor, Kimberly, who placed her hand on her chest. She said she wished she’d been in my 8^th grade English Language Arts class, then volunteered, “I’m on a healing journey.”

“Me too!” I replied. She smiled then introduced me to her companion, Connie, and her wee russet brown poodle, Russell. 

“Can I take a photo of your flags?” she asked. “The spirals have a special meaning to me.”

“Of course,” I said of my faded flags, which I’ve traveled with for a decade. Odd, but until my camp neighbor mentioned it, I’d never noticed the spirals at the beginning and end of the strand: the first spiral is complete with variations of red, while the other, green and blue, is partially highlighted indicating “in process”. 

“What does the spiral mean to you?” I asked.

“A path to healing,” she said, explaining that in her experience, growth is often painful. “People say healing is like taking one step forward and two steps back. But I believe it’s more like a side-to-side shuffle, stepping off the path to pause and reflect, before getting back on the road.” 

“That’s crazy, I was just writing about that,” I shared, holding up my journal. 

“There are no coincidences,” Connie affirmed. 

“Can I share something that happened to me yesterday?” I asked.

“Please,” they said in unison. 

I was journaling. Spiraling—my definition—as I often do, writing about my worries, fears, my desire to help loved ones, only to dead-end, realizing my limitations. “Once and for all,” I wrote, “I need to get a bolt cutter and cut the chains that keep weighing me down.” I had just put a period at the end of the sentence when I heard a strange buzzing sound in the sky. 

Understand that this campground, other than the roaring ocean and symphony of flying ducks, squawking blue jays and melodic, red-breasted blackbirds, is exceptionally quiet. In my five days here, I have yet to hear a jet, boombox or obnoxious citified sound. 

So, to hear a sound in the sky was unusual.

I looked up, like the servant in Ray Bradbury’s short story, “The Flying Machine”, and witnessed the master storyteller’s words come to life: A winged, engine-powered, giant kite was soaring above the ragged Pacific Northwest coastline. The pilot was free. Unchained. Focused on the beauty, the exhilaration of flight. 

The sight was fleeting, too quick to get a clear photo.

“Did you see it?” I asked my camp neighbors. 

“We heard something but didn’t look up.”  

 “It might sound silly, but I think it was a sign’” I said.

“No coincidences,” Kimberly said, “you were meant to see that.”

 “Don’t let fear stop you,” Connie said, offering her interpretation of the sighting. 

One might think, “You’re retired, what do you have to worry about?” Aren’t you dancing on the sand dunes, light, airy, an endless stream of money flowing out of your pockets, fit, stealth, rich in conversation, possessions, in your pursuit of happiness, unencumbered, open, the world is your oyster kind of thing?

Sometimes. 

While I’m the same silly girl I’ve always been albeit bigger-waisted and saggier-skinned, I’ve acquired a lot of baggage along the way, patterns, habits, that I’m constantly reviewing and shedding. My current Me-Growth Project is to be more mindful and travel with a lightness of being. As such, I’m striving … 

                to be intentional,

                to sleep as long or as little as I wish, 

               to avoid rushing, 

               to embrace silence and conversation, 

               to dismiss anger, 

               to focus on the good in people, 

              and dance in the moonlight with the shimmering dragonflies

as I journey in my unapologetic gypsy home, decorated with twinkling lights, tiny pumpkins, Fall leaves, talisman rocks, shells, and textured pillows stuffed with all the clothes I own. I carry too much, it’s true. It’s my nature, my habit. But I’m learning to discard the things and feelings that no longer serve me. According to my new camp acquaintance, Kimberly, the process continues, “Until our final day on Earth.”

I like that notion.

If you never read Bradbury’s short story—-spoiler alert—-the Emperor murders the enthused pilot/inventor because he fears the impact future Flying Machines will have on his kingdom. The ramifications of fear are powerful: On one hand it motivated the pilot to soar, while his nemesis viewed flight as a threat. The Emperor thought he won by silencing his enemy. But turns out, fear ultimately trapped the ruler in a sealed globe of his own making. In the end, the Emperor could not control the inevitable.

Bradbury’s cautionary tale gave me something to ponder as I absorbed the blessed fragments of the Pacific Northwest sun and wondered if the rumble I just felt was the predicted platonic earthquake and 15-minutes-to-escapeTsunami or my Apple Watch reminding me, “Time to move.” I stepped into the labyrinth, as my technological travel partner instructed, and did as I was told. Enjoy the gift of life every single precious, complicated moment.