Once upon a time there was a girl…
The girl was lively in manner with bright eyes and a gentle laugh. One day, one ordinary, special day this girl learned a secret. The secret came from her heart bursting with force and energy into her spirit. Like a wild thing that pauses to gaze at you before bounding away again in the very next moment. Breathless and dizzy she ran to her mother. “Mommy! Mommy! I can fly! I can fly!” Happiness came spilling out from the girl into the air about her.
With a great and complacent yawn the mother said, “That’s nice dear.” The mother stood looking but not seeing, listening but not hearing or caring or feeling, just as if a part of her was not living. The girl was stunned; she looked earnestly at the mother for a moment and then solemnly turned to go to her room. “Why is she not happy?” the girl said aloud to herself. “Maybe,” she thought, “everyone can fly and so my mommy knew all along that I would someday learn the secret.”
For many years the girl was mightily pleased with herself. She felt safe in the knowledge that she was talented and brilliant just as the children of the world usually are.
Then one day, one ordinary, horrible day a great evil came to the girl and her family. The evil haunted the girl watching her like a predator watches prey. Evil smiled a frightening bitter smile and laughed an angry hateful laugh and said, “You can’t fly. Silly girl, you have to be smart to fly and you are not smart. You can’t fly, silly girl, you have to be pretty to fly. Don’t you know you are ugly? Silly girl, only people who try their hardest can fly, and you silly girl are lazy.” So it was after a time of hearing the evils’ laughing words that the girl began to think, “This is why mommy was not excited, she knew that I was not smart enough or pretty enough. I will try harder though and I will not be lazy and I will grow and learn with all my strength and someday I will be smart.”
Eventually the girl covered all of her trying with report cards and makeup and platitudes so that after a time she forgot what she was trying for, and the power to fly was hidden away in a deep, deep place in her heart. Time began to pass slowly, as the girl became a woman, and her spirit was bent under the weight of toil and strife. She herself became a mother one day and had a life full of thinking, crying, giving and lying. She would watch her children growing and one by one they would run to her, breathless and dizzy, bouncing in her arms as they yelled “Mommy! Mommy! I can fly! I can fly!” The girl who was now a woman and a gentle loving mother would hug them to her tightly and say, “Yes my children I know. Yes, of course you can fly!” Everyday she would watch as each one of her children would lift their head and open their heart and glide on the wind ever higher, rising toward the sun and finally softly landing on the tips of their toes. The desire to go coming again and again, like the rising of the tides. Each time they would return to the mothers’ arms that were waiting and the mothers’ heart that was loving. She was always there watching.
Ages and an age passed and the woman grew old, old in her bones and old in her spirit. Her skin was thin and her hair was white, but lingering in her eyes was a spark that had not grown old. As the oldness came upon her, she began to remember a secret that she had known long ago in the days of her youth. Now, it came to pass that the woman was ready to go away. The children and their children, and the children’s children were all together waiting and listening to the heart that had taught them all they knew. The woman looked at her legacy, her precious family and was content. She lay quiet and still in the dusk of her life and whispered softly to herself. The children bent lovingly over her to hear and as the woman smiled the gentle smile of her girlish youth she laughed and said aloud, “I can fly.” The children looked each at the other, puzzled and confused. They bent closer to answer their mother and said in the softest whisper, “Yes mother we know. Yes, of course you can fly.” Then, at that moment, the old woman lifted her head and opened her heart and as she breathed her last she glided on the wind and up to the sun.
So it was that the children and the children’s children all lived happily ever after…
