they do what i cannot
the chimney at chapman school.
when i was young, all i ever really wanted was to be able to fly.
this, i'm sure, is not an unusual desire among the under-five-years-of-age crowd. what i think, however, might be unusual is the degree to which i went to achieve this modest goal of mine.
i remember tying dish towels to my neck -- we had tons of them in our kitchen drawers; my dad's mom would embroider a set and send them to my mom every christmas -- and then run around our tile floor, hoping that, eventually, i might liftoff. when that didn't happen, i added more towels.
i remember playing soccer on some youth team. i remember getting bored playing soccer, forgetting the ball, and running around the field, flapping my arms instead. it seems like a better use of my time.
i remember persuading my dad to make bat wings for me out of cardboard. we put little rope straps on the back so they'd stay firmly on my arms. i spent an afternoon coloring them with markers and crayons and construction paper. they were amazingly crafted and amazingly detailed. after running around the yard for a good thirty minutes, though, i came to the conclusion that they were not amazingly functional. when i suggested that i might have better luck jumping off the roof, my dad suggested i would not.
all of this sort of came back to me this month as i watched some 8,000 swifts find their way through the sky and into the chimney at chapman school in nw portland. i suppose if i can't fly, at least i can watch them do it in that way they do.
this, i'm sure, is not an unusual desire among the under-five-years-of-age crowd. what i think, however, might be unusual is the degree to which i went to achieve this modest goal of mine.
i remember tying dish towels to my neck -- we had tons of them in our kitchen drawers; my dad's mom would embroider a set and send them to my mom every christmas -- and then run around our tile floor, hoping that, eventually, i might liftoff. when that didn't happen, i added more towels.
i remember playing soccer on some youth team. i remember getting bored playing soccer, forgetting the ball, and running around the field, flapping my arms instead. it seems like a better use of my time.
i remember persuading my dad to make bat wings for me out of cardboard. we put little rope straps on the back so they'd stay firmly on my arms. i spent an afternoon coloring them with markers and crayons and construction paper. they were amazingly crafted and amazingly detailed. after running around the yard for a good thirty minutes, though, i came to the conclusion that they were not amazingly functional. when i suggested that i might have better luck jumping off the roof, my dad suggested i would not.
all of this sort of came back to me this month as i watched some 8,000 swifts find their way through the sky and into the chimney at chapman school in nw portland. i suppose if i can't fly, at least i can watch them do it in that way they do.
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