"...AND I FLY!"

     I prepare to leave. I’ve exercised and stretched my wings in preparation for this day. I am ready.

     I leave behind family and friends, only for awhile. I will miss them, think about them. When I return I will share visual adventures through the art of words.

     I will return with souvenirs: stories to imprint on their imaginations and inspiration for their own life’s adventures.

     I don’t say goodbye. I rise before anyone else, even before the sun.

     Just as the sun skims above the horizon, I start my assent. Running, I spread my wings and scoop the air underneath them. The very action of fluttering captures atmosphere under each individual feather. Captured, and with no time to escape, air lifts me upward….

     And I fly!

     ‘Anywhere’ is my destination, for I’ve seen nothing of the earth in this way, at this altitude. All destinations are a new adventure; a new danger; a new exploit. I seek beauty from a different perspective. I search for unique objects and creatures and the mystery of life as seen from above it; a possible “God’s perspective”.

     Floating, swooping, gliding.

     It is everything I have dreamed it would be. My body doesn’t hold me back. I flap my wings just once and glide on a soft cushion of air. I am going to ‘Everywhere and Anywhere’. Every possible destination is my goal. No words describe the freedom I am absorbing.

     This is freedom. It must be what the spirit feels when it is released from the bonds of a body. Lightness, joy, elation, jubilation. Only words. It can’t be described by words, only experienced.

      I never want to go back to that earthly life and its gravity. No, never.

      And I fly…