Violet Bent Backwards Over the Grass — Chapter no 8

SportCruiser

I took a flying lesson on my 33rd birthday instead of calling you or parking on the block where our old place used to be

Genesee

Genesee Genesee Pathetic I know, but sometimes I still like to park on that street and have lunch in the car just to feel close to you.

I was once in love with my life here in that studio apartment with you little yellow flowers on the tops of trees as our only view out of the only window- big enough for me to see our future through.

But it turned out I was the only one who could see it.

Stupid apartment complex. Terrible you. You who i wait for

You

You

You Like a broken record stuck on loop.

So that day on my birthday i thought something has to change, it can’t always be about waiting for u

Don’t tell anyone but part of my reasoning for taking the flight class was this idea that if i could become my own navigator- a captain of the sky that perhaps i could stop looking for direction- from you.

Well, what started off as an idea on a whim has turned into something more. Too shy to explain to the owners that my first lesson was just a one time thing. I’ve continued to go to classes each week. At the precious little strip off of Santa Monica and Bundy.

And everything was going fine we were starting with dips and loops. And then something terrible happened-

during my fourth lesson in the sky, my instructor- younger than i but as tough as you- instructed me to do a simple maneuver. It’s not that i didn’t do it but i was slow to lean the SportCruiser into a right hand upward turn.

Scared. Scared that i would lose control of the plane Not tactfully and not gently the instructor shook his head and without looking at me said, “you don’t trust yourself.”

I was horrified. Feeling as though I had somehow been found out.

Like he knew me- how weak i was

Of course he was only talking about my ability as a pilot in the sky. But i knew it was meant for me to hear those words.

for me they held a deeper meaning.

I didn’t trust myself not just 2500 ft above the coast of Malibu but with anything. And i didnt trust you, I could have said something but i was quiet because pilots aren’t like poets they don’t make metaphors between life and the sky.

In the midst of this midlife meltdown navigational exercise in self-examination, I also decided to do something else I always wanted to do- take sailing lessons in the vibrant bay of Marina Del Rey. I signed up for the class as Elizabeth Grant and nobody blinked an eye. So why was I so sure that when I walked into the tiny shack on Bali Way someone would say “you’re not a captain of a ship or the master of the sky”

No, the fisherman didn’t care and so neither did I.

And for a brief moment i felt more myself than ever before, letting the self-proclaimed drunkard captain’s lessons wash over me like the foamy tops of the sea.

Midway through, my forehead burned and my hands raw from jibing, the captain told me the most important thing i would need to know on the sea. Never run the ship into irons.

That’s nautical terms for not sailing the boat directly into the wind. In order to do that though you have to know where the wind is coming from. And you might not have time to look

to the mast or up farther to the weather vane so you have to feel where the wind is coming from- on your cheeks, and by the tips of the white waves-

from which direction they’re rolling.

To do this, he gave me an exercise.

He told me to close my eyes and asked me to feel on my neck which way the wind was blowing. I already knew I was going to get it wrong.

“The wind is coming from everywhere- I feel It all over.”

I told him.

“No,” he said. “The wind is coming from the left. The port side.”

I sat waiting for him to tell me, “you don’t trust yourself.”

But he didn’t, so I said it for him.

“I don’t trust myself.”

He laughed, gentler than the pilot but still not realizing that my failure in the exercise was hitting me at a much deeper level.

“It’s not that you don’t trust yourself,” he said. “It’s simply that you’re not a captain. It isn’t what you do.”

Then he told me he wanted me to practice every day so I would get better.

“Which grocery store do you go to?” he asked “To the Ralphs in the Palisades,” I replied.

“Ok. When you’re in the Ralphs in the Palisades – I want you- as you’re walking from your car to the store – to close your eyes and feel which way the wind is blowing. Now I don’t want you to look like a crazy person crouching in the middle of the parking lot but everywhere you go – I want you to try and find which way the wind is coming in from and then determine if it’s from the port or starboard side so when you’re back on the boat you’ll have a better sense of it.”

I thought his advice was adorable. I could already picture myself in the parking lot squinting my eyes with perfect housewives looking on. I could picture myself growing a better sense of which way the wind was blowing and as I did a tiny bit of deeper trust also began to grow within myself.

I thought of mentioning it but I didn’t.

Because captains aren’t like poets they don’t make metaphors between the sea and sky.

And as I thought that to myself

I realized- that’s why I write.

All of this circumnavigating the earth was to get back to my life 6 trips to the moon for my poetry to arise

I’m not a captain

I’m not a pilot

I write I write.