You Can't Own The Sky

I have always loved heights.

I think that dreaming of flying has always kept me from being afraid of falling. I'm a romantic like that I suppose. Instead of feeling unsettled when I'm at a great height, I feel grounded. Being able to see for miles and miles reminds me of just how small I am compared to the vastness of this places I live in: this earth and universe. I love to simply look and look, picking out people and buildings, landscapes and landmarks and possibly even the edge of vision where the earth meets the sky where one feels as though it would be possible to ride off into the sunset or follow a rainbow from one end to another.

I love the feeling of being in a roller coaster car that is slowly climbing to the top of the first peak. The anticipation - excitement mixed with fear - builds in one's stomach as the ground gets farther and farther away. If you can take in the view for just a second, before the coaster roars to life and begins the insane swoops and spins, it might take your breath away just as much as the coming corkscrews.

Once, I got the opportunity to go on an aerial tour of a forest in Costa Rica. I and the group I was with strapped ourselves in and hang glided from platform to platform, rushing through the trees, high above the lush ground below. When I was a little girl I loved to play outside, and perhaps my favorite things of all was to climb trees. Confession: I still love to climb trees, though I don't do it very often. In fact I think the last time was when a friend wanted to take a picture of a me in a tree so I gladly climbed up a huge, gnarled old oak. That was about two years ago. If I had my wish, I would live in a tree house that was a combination of the one in Swiss Family Robinson and the old Tarzan movies, with a hang gliding system to get one from the house to the group. Hang gliding may be as close to flying as I've yet come. However sky diving is high on my list of things to someday do.



At this moment, I am sitting beside a window in the second story of a library, marveling at how I can look out over the tops of other buildings and trees and down at my own car which appears to be merely the size of my thumb nail. An American flag rises high above the other single-story buildings, rippling majestically in the breeze. On the other side of me there is a large opening, an empty space, between the two floors of the library. This space is enclosed in glass. People can stand along it's railing and look down at the first story, and of course people below can look up. From where I am sitting I can look down and surreptitiously watch people who are walking through the atrium below. They maneuver around a couple of sculptures and past an information table which no one is currently sitting at. Where I am sitting it is quiet and there are few other people. Below, I can hear children's excited babble and grown-ups hushed voices in response. I think I have the best seat in the whole place.

Some people are drawn more towards water, some to the earth, and some to the sky. Curious, natural, beautiful tendencies. I've always been drawn to the sky. It's so vast and ... free. What about you?