Flight

The faint electric buzz that comes before a storm, sticks to my skin magnified by the strangely humid summer day.  I’m sweating just standing here watching the dark clouds slowly roll in.  It’s going to be some time before the storm breaks.  “We need rain bad.”  My little sister’s comment seems needless as I stand out on the hot concrete, looking at the yard with its brown mix of dust and sad little weeds pretending to be grass.  The garden isn’t in much better shape, despite my mother’s desperate watering.  The only things left are some harassed looking cherry tomatoes whose tiny sour fruit seems too heavy for them to bear.  Burnt stems and leaves line up in neat rows where the remains of a beautiful spring wild flower patch had been.  There remain, however, my arch nemeses in the garden, the evil pixy roses, looking far worse for the wear, though not fooling me into believing they have died.  Every year these innocent looking monsters make their return.  I have to get between them and the fence, pulling out weeds and pruning off the old growth.  Every year the same thing, no matter how thick the gloves or how tough the material of my jeans, I always end up pulling thorns out of my skin.  At this point, my dear little sister chirps out the quote I told her the one and only time she did the job, “you can be upset the roses have thorns, or happy the thorns have roses.”  I could strangle her some times!  Thunder rumbles in the distance.  A fresh wave of the hot, sharp electric smell burns my nostrils and prickles the hair on the back of my neck.  I walk over to the fence and dump a bowl of egg shells and other rubbish in to the compost pile.  I have to help clean up lunch dishes.
My sisters get in to their normal round of rough housing.  I don’t really feel like joining in today, so I just watch some T.V. and wait.  The clouds burst.   My little dog Daisy, the great courageous creature, runs for the bed and hides.  What a wonderful storm, a symphony.  The rain falls in a torrent, lighting flashes, and thunder booms.  The wind stays calm, without out it the storm feels more pure.  It also causes too much trouble throwing things around; knocking branches loose and up rooting plants.  By the time it is done the yard looks like a shedding animal missing half its hair.  Resting on the couch contemplating, I want to go outside but it’s still a too fierce out there.  My father’s many lectures on getting hit by lighting hadn’t gone entirely to waste.  Slowly, the lighting retreats and the storm calms.  It is like waving the starting flag for me. I pull on a pair of flip flops and grab for my mp3 player. Running out the door I leap up the garden stairs winding my way along the dog path.   I sprint through the trees.  Normally Daisy would be running at my heels, but she doesn’t share my love of the storm.  I throw my shoes off, leap into the air and grab a bit of chain pulling my weight against it.  I fly!
The cold rain falls softly on my skin, pouring onto my neck and down my back.  It falls in my eyes and streaks across my cheeks like tears.  I don’t bother to brush the water off it feels good in this heat, makes me feel awake and alive. The electric charge is beginning to fade, but I can still feel it prickling in my ears as music pulses through my head phones.  As the music picks up, I push myself against the air faster.  I fly higher.   My muscles go tense, every sense is heightened, and I’m so charged I feel like I might burst. The music player is pushed down in to my pocket.  I grab worn metal with both hands.  It’s hard to keep hold of the wet metal.  I close my eyes as my mind races and then goes numb, meditation in motion.  I’m everywhere and I’m nowhere.  It’s amazing just to fly.
A sweet sad song begins to play; I’m in a dark broken city that has forgotten how to hope.  A desperate, sort of sad, beautiful young girl stands in the rain laughing and dancing.  I join her in the rain, feeling joy at just being alive.  But it wasn’t me, not exactly me any way.  I am Nightingale, a sadder but stronger and wiser part of me.  With a flash of light I leave the ruined city far behind.
A love song plays, a soft voice calls me. Whitefeather pulls me in his arms.  We fly together through the night.  I’m a rebel girl that can’t be loyal, even to herself.   The landscape goes by quickly.  A bay mare breathes heavily underneath me.  I slow to let her rest.  Whitefeather catches up; a speckled stallion mane flutters in his face.  I laugh tauntingly and ride on.  Soon I’ll need to rest the mare and let him catch me.  Neither handles my bating well.  I’m a troublemaker, a scoundrel, except when he holds me. Strong hands which have known hard work and violence embrace the soft feathery down on my bare neck and arms.  Powerful hands which are gentler then I could have imagined, and I am content to be nothing more then loved.
Wild Celtic flute music begins.   I’m one of the Dark Wings, bound by my duty, a warrior.  I am the monster in your closet; a nightmare under the bed.  We don’t exist. What you don’t know can’t hurt you; right?
African drums play.  I dance, with man and monster of every breed, in hidden places deep below the earth, a dark forest, or sometimes plain sight, but always unseen.  The snake and his children twirl around me. The chain slips from my hand, I start to fall.  Adrenalin floods. Caught by my finger tips the fall stops and I regain balance.  I am the great winged lion calming her child, to a slow lullaby.
‘FLASH’!  Ok,  that was a little to close.  With cruelty beyond words, lighting forces reality on my unprepared consciousness.  The weight of it pulls me from flight.  Lower and lower I circle, coming to land on soft, sandy, well worn earth.  The wave of dust that normally flies up washing over my feet and ankles is content to just splash my toes with soupy, chocolate colored goo. I turn off the music player and sit for a moment in the neon yellow rubber cradle letting droplets, from my soaked hair, form rings in a puddle at my feet.  All around the forest sings a rain song.  The thunder rumbles louder as frogs in the pond behind my house sing their song of love.  Some crickets and a swallow join the chorus.  Trees sway and hiss with wind’s warning.  Lightening first sends wind as her minion shaking and braking branches, then she herself gives a final warning to find shelter.  I have no choice but to yield to this villainess’ demand.  I pick up my worn black flip flops.  Barefoot, I walk down the dog path, away from my muse in times when inspiration refuses to strike, the old wooden swing set.