November 2000

Flying – The Religion Your Mom Never Told You About

By Girl Friday

You may have to be a girl to get this feeling often (I’m not sure, never having been a boy), but do you want to blame your Mom for a lot of things? Like not telling you that you shouldn’t watch Roswell because it’s just the pretty teenage version of the X-Files, or that the number of men worth speaking to are decreasing by the minute, and you have less than three years to find one before you implode into a radical feminist by name as well as by reputation? Not that I have a problem with any of this, I actually have a healthy love and respect for my mother, watch Roswell because I don’t have cable and can only see the X-Files once a week and enjoy the thought of becoming an even more vital and raging Womyn, but sometimes, just sometimes, I like to say it’s her fault.

Like flying. Now, when I was young and fighting the bonds of Catholicism, running away from CCD classes and thinking the rosary would make a better necklace than a tool for spiritual grace, my mother, despite her no-doubt never-ending exasperation at her atheist-in-the-making daughter, never said, ‘Friday, why don’t we take you flying?’ At least I think she gave up, she hasn’t threatened me with not receiving Christmas presents if I don’t go to Mass in a couple years now.

Mom, how could you????????

I’m devastated, that now, at my age, I am just finally experiencing pangs of religious desire (kind of like the feeling priests must get prostrated in submission) for FLYING. Who knew? Was it just that we were part of the destitute middle class and couldn’t afford Flying? Maybe, because I’m a good guilty Irish girl, she just didn’t know. Maybe it’s my father’s fault. Hmmmm. I haven’t considered blaming my father.

I remember, back in my young and innocent days, planning midnight feasts at airports. Even then, I knew there was something about the planes that could draw me. I loved to watch the lights of the runway, the blinding white light that would pass you into a time warp of bliss everytime you rounded the edge of the airport field, the blue and red and green lights that would glow ever more powerful in foggy weather. No one understood. No one ever wanted to come with me. But a guiding force was taking effect. I even planned a fête for my Senior Ball date and I, a private celebration on top of my car at the airport. We would eat a fancy picnic and watch planes land and take off under a starry sky. No wonder he spent the majority of the evening drunk, bemoaning his ex-girlfriend. I was determined, felt the power of Flying, and he got scared.

But until recently, I didn’t realize that I could have that power myself. I can fly!!! It never occurred to me that it was within my reach. Somehow, the great gods of Flying have bestowed upon me the honor of holding the steering wheel in my own hands. I am a humble servant to the powers that gave me this gift. A tiny plane, a space that encompasses me, the Flying accolyte, and my teacher. The liftoff was smoother than sliding your hand through water, a baptism of air and machine; and ME. To look over the ground, pulling away from the trappings of commonplace earth, was the most sensual and uplifting experience since, well…I’ll share that story another time, it’s a little to risque for a family site like Evil Robots. (The editors may disagree, but we’ll just have to see if they can handle my sensual and uplifting past first)

To see mountains, curving softly along the earth; the river, so powerful from a bank, so puny from the sky. I want to battle the storms, control the metal in my hands through my knowledge and power. I want to twist in the sky, turn the sight of earth into a spinning wheel. And brush past the mountains, as if to greet them gently.

My mother, much as I love her, has hidden many a thing from me. But this, this is a great moment, as I realize that all her plots cannot keep me from becoming a pilot. What was she thinking? That she was protecting me? All true religion reveals itself eventually, and while I have much to learn, nothing will stop me now.

You know, my favorite series of books in the world are the Anne of Green Gables collection. (I’m trying to keep up the Evil Robots family values – you didn’t know they had those, did you?) Ah, to be a child again! Anyway, there is a piece in Rilla of Ingleside, the last in the series, about Anne’s youngest daughter during World War I. It’s really a touching book, the only one that can make me cry like a baby. Anne and her love, Gilbert (mine too) see a plane fly overhead. They ruminate on the future, on grandchildren who will take their first dates on plane rides instead of rides in horse and buggy. And they think how dreadful it would be, to not be able to put your arm around your sweetheart, because of all the control it would take to keep the plane in the air. I imagine it might take a bit of maneuvering, but I think it’s possible. I can’t see why you can’t become adept at flying to the point of being able to get some action while in the air.

I think, from now on, I’m going to add a requirement for all my lovers. Not only do they have to love their mothers, be willing to dance and tell me their height upon introduction, but they have to be pilots. It limits the field, I know, but it was already so limited, I can’t see how it would hurt. It could only make my love life better.

I am sure this was meant to be. To have a windless day to be initiated into the Flying experience, to see the ground with such clarity. One forgets, when dreaming from afar, that the green waving grass is poisoned by pesticides, or hiding its sparseness with the breeze. Land that you can roll in, become one with, is harder to find all the time. On the other hand, air has the ability to render its faults invisible, to envelop you in a sliding fullness, like a pillow. Even through the metal of the plane, you can feel the air grasp you in its arms, then slip you through them. Once I have the language of Flying in me, learn to feel the controls as subtly as my breath, I will feel Flying in my bones, in my body. For now, Flying is like running my fingertips across another’s hand, the tingle of power and connection of two bodies hovering, pining for contact. The sensuality of breathing in and out, slowing the world down to the timing of your hand, my hand, meeting. Oo la la. Mmmmm.

Oops!! Somewhere around the title this stopped being a religious tract. My bad. I’m an evil pagan, what the hell do I know about religion? Flying rocks! Do it! Do it now! Get your bad-ass self out there and fly! Once I get a few people around to my way of thinking, we can start a cult. We’ll do the religion bit when the donations – er, the supporters – start to grow in number.