Flying With A Bent Whangee

"'Good Morning, Poopsie," I said as I entered the sal de ban. I didn't actually see her in all the billowing mist but Uma, the Empress of Chadsford Hall and Queen of Cats, was there on the side of the tub in all her tortoise-shelled glory, and I reasoned that if Uma is present, can Ms. Wonder be far behind.

"Good morning," said a disembodied voice from beyond the curtain of steam.

"What's it like out?" I said.

"Exceptionally clement," she said and I knew that it was going to be a good day if this Poopsie Wonder gave it a good review. A most amazing person, Ms. Wonder. So competent in every respect. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, having a partner like this P. Wonder makes a hell of a difference to a fellow's day.

"Your pilot friend…," she began.

"Bob?" I said.

"Right," she said. "Your pilot friend emailed some information about their flight around the world…"

"The Flight for Life," I said taking care to pronounce the capitals.

"Yes, Flight for Life," she said and I was impressed that she could not only pronounce capital letters but also did a passable job with the italics. "He said they've finished the second leg of the flight and are in Istanbul."

"Ah, Istanbul," I said. "You know Poopsie, I'm in love with the romance of Istanbul. I've never been there but have read so much about it that I feel if I were there, I wouldn't need a map to get around."

"We should go," she said.

"You know best," I said. "If they've arrived in Istanbul, that means they've left Amsterdam, of course. No way to get to Turkey without leaving Amsterdam. And I presume they've been through Paris, at least to stop at a drive-through or two, and then on to, well, on to wherever they've been--Athens, Milan, and Germany of course, although I don't have the exact itinerary in my head."

"They've had quite an exciting time of it," she said and something about the way she left it hanging assured me that there was more to the story.

"Do tell," I said.

"Well, for one thing, while flying to Normandy…" 

"Probably to buzz the bathers on the beaches," I interjected. "That would be a hoot wouldn't it?"

"I seriously doubt they are buzzing anybody," she said. "They strive, I'm sure, to remain focused on their objective."

"Spreading the good word about the work of St. Jude Children's Hospital you mean?"

"Of course," she said. "Members of the flight crew were interviewed on national television in Germany according to your friend..."

"Bob," I said. "Bob Bradley."

"And that kind of attention is paramount to increasing awareness world-wide of the services provided by St. Jude to children with cancer, regardless of a family's ability to pay. It's unheard of in most of the world," she said.

"Yes, you're right again, of course. Flying around the world may sound like a lot of fun on the surface but the Flight for Life crew is engaged in serious business. This isn't just one big adventure for them."

"Oh, they've had some adventure," she said. "They had to make an emergency landing because fuel was spilling from a wing tank."

"Poopsie," I said, "you must have gotten the facts mangled. I knew this was going to happen when you started eating so many salads. You've got to get back on a fish diet before the brain cells atrophy. Fuel doesn't just spill from tanks."

"They lost a fuel cap," she said. "And after landing, the only option they had was to empty the tank and move the fuel to another using a 25 litre jug."

"They didn't enjoy that," I said.

"No, but they expected to have a fuel cap waiting for them in Athens," she said.

"I'll keep my fingers crossed that the rest of the flight is uneventful, but you know how it is, Poopsie, one damned thing after another."

"Yeah, well Bob says that they have another problem now. One of the engines has a bent push rod."

I mused about this for a moment or two because it seemed to me that a bent rod of any sort, push or pull, deserves considerable attention."

"I suppose it's not such a big deal, since they have a spare engine, right?"

"Oh, it's still a problem."

I took a few moments to muse again. It seemed to me, considering this and that, and taking everything into account that these round-the-world flyers do live life to the fullest, if you get my meaning.

"Can't fly with a bent whangee, then?" I said.

"You can fly with one engine," she said, "but if the second engine freezes during takeoff, it could spell disaster."

"It could end up being a stinker you mean?" I said.

"If you're below a thousand feet or so," she said.

"Poopsie," I said, "you do know everything don't you? Admit it. Everything."

"You're sweet," she said, "but you know that's not true. Flying just happens to be a favorite topic of mine. I once took a course in aviation weather and one thing led to another. Remember the time I made aerial photographs of that corn maze from the open cockpit of a 1948 Piper Cub? That was a thrill."

"Say, Poopsie," I said, "I have a tip on a stock that's positioned for a 70% upside. Would you invest in a gold mine?"

"Can't advise it," she said. "The mining sector is not sanguine."

"Yes, I see what you mean. What was it my dad used to say--You can't roller skate with a bent whangee--us that what is was?  At any rate, keep the money in the old oak chest, then?"

"Why not make a donation," she said. "That way you would send some positive energy to the crew of Flight for Life and you would be helping children with cancer to hope for a better future."

"I see what you mean. Support Flight for Life and do some good for children who desperately need it."

"That's right," she said. "Your friend, Bob, says that spreading awareness of St. Jude and the work they do is as important as raising money to pay for the work--still, the money is needed. So, why not make a donation now."

I wasted no time. It was for me the work of an instant to log onto MRI Charitable Foundation and make a contribution. You can do the same.

Flight for Life

"Poopsie," I said, as I entered the sal de ban and waved away the clouds of steam billowing from the tub, "do you know what keeps an airplane in the air?"

"That's a question that flight engineers continue to debate isn't it," she said, "or have you read something recently about a consensus opinion?"

You are familiar by now with the special sense of humor this P. Wonder wields and so I'm sure you aren't surprised by her response. It's something she inherited from her Slavic ancestors, I'm sure of it. Looking for the humor in the situation probably helped them get through those long winter nights when the wolves were threatening to huff and puff and all that other unpleasantness. I admit this gag got right next to me and I laughed out loud.

"That's a good one," I said. "Consensus opinion! But what I'm referring to is the air beneath the wings. And I think that's a perfect metaphor for the people supporting the Flight for Life project. They, and I refer to those making donations to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, are the air beneath the wings of the Piper Aztec making its way around the world to bring attention to the hospital and the services it provides to children with cancer."

"And St. Jude's," she said, "is the wind beneath the wings of those children in their time of need."

I didn't immediately respond, being caught up in thoughts of just how true her words were. I was reminded of the many times in my life when I was hopeless, which is about every other day, and someone came along to help asking nothing in return. St. Jude's is like that. No family need pay for the help they provide the children. Incredible when you think about it.

"Are they back in the air?" she said and by they she meant the crew of Flight for Life--not St. Jude hospital.

"Still in Amsterdam, taking a well deserved break after flying from North Carolina to Greenland and then to Iceland and then to the continent," I said giving her the summary of the first leg. "Do you realize, Poopsie, that only 120 people have made this flight in a plane classified as "light aircraft?" And these guys are the first to do it to raise money to help children in need."

"Where are they headed next?"

"I'm not really certain," I said. "but the last time I spoke to Bob, the co-pilot, he hinted they will fly through western Europe--France, Spain, all the usual suspects, and then they will stop in Ankara before beginning the third leg of the trip. They will stop along the way, of course, to meet with well-wishers who want to get a photo with the team and the plane. I wish I'd done that."

"Maybe you can meet them when they return to Roxboro," she said.

"I have a better idea," I said. "I think I'll meet them in Southeast Asia somewhere. If I'm lucky, I can get short flight in the plane."

"I don't think so," she said.

I didn't expect her to turn cartwheels at the idea of my taking a little jaunt around the globe but I did expect her to rally round the flag just a little.

"Why not?" I said.

"Because you're not going if I'm not going and I'm not able to leave the office right now."

I was dashed! This was so unlike the woman I count as my number one fan. I could make nothing of it other than recognizing that sometimes life sneaks up very quietly, keeping to the shadows, and then when it catches you with your guard down, it tears off the whiskers and pounces. This time was one of those times.

Still Anonymous After All This Time

"What's that noise?" asked a voice from somewhere in the darkness. I opened my eyes thinking I was in the slot canyon I told you about--the one in Escalante in Utah. You remember that I saw the puma's paw print in the dust there. But I wasn't in the canyon this morning. I was in my bedroom and the voice belonged to Feldspar, the rock troll, or perhaps I was dreaming that he was sleeping on the bedroom floor waiting to be reunited with his native dimension.

"That's just Sagi," I said; or did I think it?

"Sagi?"

"He's shredding a roll of toilet paper," I said.

"Shredding toilet tissue?" he said.

"Tissue or paper," I said, "both are correct."

"Why?" he said.

"There you have me in deep waters, I'm afraid, but it's a favorite pastime," I said.

"Habitual?" he said.

"He finds it hard to resist but he swears he can stop anytime he chooses," I said.

"That's what they all say," he said.

"Well, nothing to do about it but wait for him to hit bottom," I said.

The conversation led from one topic to another as conversations do in the hours leading up to dawn. These desultory talks are dangerous places for me when my brain is just starting and the spark plugs are firing in random order. I felt the need to be outside so I hastily pulled on the outer crust and hied for the crepe myrtle glen. A bit of mindfulness hits the spot when the entire week has been nothing but one damn thing after another.

In the early morning stillness beneath the morning star and buoyed up by aromatic pine straw, I was serenaded by a mockingbird singing a selection of Frank Sinatra melodies. In the middle of "I've Got You Under My Skin," the dawn bloomed in all her South Durham rosiness and soon the sun was visible, hot-dogging in the heavens. His antics gave an iridescent glow to the edges of the leaves on the crepe myrtles. It was a mood lifter.

You may have read accounts of near-death experiences. If you have, then you're familiar with the reports of being surrounded and possibly buoyed up by a light of indescribable beauty. That's how I felt. Had Ms. Wonder been with me at the time, not that she is ever with me before 8:00 AM, having wisely concluded that since most heart attacks occur before that hour, I consider it prudent to stay in bed until the danger is past. But as I say, if she had been with me, I would have said, "I've got a feeling, everything's going my way!" I said it anyway.

I suddenly felt the urge to begin a brisk walk in the sunlight and remembered a quote from Shakespeare, some little gag from one of those plays you read in high school, if they still read Shakespeare in high school, "If something is worth doing, don't waste time thinking about it, just heave into it." I'm paraphrasing.

The walk worked its wonder and for several minutes I was caught up in all the beautiful ephemera of life. This kind of thinking is something that drives Princess Amy manic, her job being to spot danger and assign the yellow, orange, or red codes to the day. You remember Amy, of course, my own personal collection of almond-shaped neurons in the middle of my head. She made her best effort to turn my light, fluffy cumulus musings into the fret-edged stratus variety, but I saw through her plan right away.

Amy and I have danced around the block more than a few times. She works tirelessly to distract me and give the mean-spirited aunts of the universe an opening to sock me with a cosh behind the ear. Success does not come easy even without her monkey wrenches and who can say why really? It could be that the path deviates from the dotted line connecting A to B or it could be that life is simply difficult. I'm inclined to believe the latter. Scott Peck and the Buddhists agree with me on this. 

The point in all this is that Amy is intent on derailing the completion of my book, Out of the Blue. She'd laid her plans out accordingly and I might have stepped on the banana peel she'd placed in my path. Fortunately, having arrived at the northernmost edge of Chatsford Village, I turned and noticed far across the swale, up the terraced hillside, and beyond the ha ha, my six-cylindered, front-wheel driven charger, waiting to answer my whistle. The sight of her reminded me of all the road trips we'd taken in the bright sunshine and in the gentle rain and it was as though I were standing in that before-mentioned indescribably beautiful light once more.

I raised my arm in salute and said to the morning air, "Good morning, Wynd Horse!" Now I know you're going to find it difficult to credit this but if you've followed this blog for a few turns of the moon, then surely you know that I do not mislead my audience. Not intentionally. And I'm not misleading you now when I say that no sooner had I greeted her than she responded with "Toot, toot!" 

That's right; all one her own. It's little things like that in life that make all the difference, don't you think so?

Quantum Entanglement

"First there is a mountain, then it seems the mountain's gone, but then if you take 

another look, why it's been there all along." ~~ Donovan, The Mountain

My morning meditation was unfolding breath by breath as I walked the courtyard of the South Point in Durham, and I was mindful of the body moving through space in rhythm with the breath. Of course, there were the usual private service announcements from Amy, that almond-eyed little bird that sits in the middle of my brain and whose only job, it seems, is to mess with my emotions.

"Look you, fool, there's a car approaching at high speed driven by a young woman late for work in the shoe department of Nordstrom's and she will brook no pedestrians crossing her path. She's irresponsible, inconsiderate, and dangerous!" That was just one of the many negative comments that I remember her announcing. Most of them were simply versions of, "Run for your life!"

"Not now, Amy," I replied to each of her proclamations. "I see the car. I see the homeless guy. I see the young man dressed in gang colors. Chill out, old girl, I've got this."

As I circled the fountain in front of the cinema, I seemed to slip into the spaces between moments, and while in there a DATA bus pulled up to the stop. Doors opened and he stepped down to the sidewalk. He took just a moment to hoist his backpack, then he hefted his staff, the one with the white knob on the end, and like a tai chi master taking up his bang! he strode into the Darkness.

The Darkness I write of was his personal slice of the dark materials. He was blind. But blind or not, this man moved fearlessly toward his goal. His movements arrested my attention if that's the word I want,  and I felt a strange attraction causing my ankles to pick up the pace. It was hard to be mindful at this speed but I was compelled to follow along.

You are familiar with quantum realities, of course, who isn't these days? Well, think about that bit of Q reality that describes the way entangled particles experience the same event simultaneously. I'm sure smoke and mirrors figure into it someway. But for this example, let's say that this man is Particle A and that the Genome is Particle B. Oh, forget that. Let's just say that I felt entangled with this man. 

As we moved through the ether I was witness to another Q effect--the one that tells us that material objects appear only when the observer notices one of the infinite numbers of probabilities. I'm paraphrasing but I'm sure you follow me. You can't expect me to do the dialect. To be perfectly clear, if I can be clear, as he walked by familiar objects, he did not tentatively reach out for them with his cane. No, what he did is this, and he did it with authority, he gave each of the landmarks a great Whack! as he passed them by.

Let there be a park bench, he seemed to say, and Whack! There was a park bench. Let there be a flower planter. Whack! And there was. Let there be a fountain. Whack! Ditto. And he saw that it was all good. I realized that to this blind man, first there was no park bench, then Whack! there was a park bench, and passing on there was no park bench.

"Are you watching this, Amy?" I asked. "This guy doesn't allow his limbic system to be in control. He lives fiercely; he's ready for whatever life has in store. He shows me that life is good and that I must not hesitate. I must go forward and never stop. What do you say to that?"

She was silent. Doesn't happen very often and I felt pretty good about it.

"That assurance comes from his refusal to give up when surrounded with adversity," I continued in order to make the most of my temporary advantage.  "It's not when everything is going our way that we grow. That way leads only to complacency and stagnation. It is when circumstances take away all the easy choices and we are left with only two--give up or step out into the Darkness. That's what Fierce Living is all about."

Still nothing from Amy. She seemed to have turned the shingle around and closed the shop window. Probably tea time for her and that was alright with me. I was happy to have been entangled with this guy's morning, as he moved like Alexander toward Egypt. I made a note to find a wizard's staff just like the one he had.

More Joy in the Morning

No, his response lacked any real enthusiasm and this got right by me. Why? That's the question I asked myself. Consider the circs I mean. Going about his business on what was presumably a typical day for a rock troll--he's a personal injury lawyer in Uberwald--and then Biff! without warning, he finds himself sitting here in my studio. You would think, wouldn't you, that he would rally round and support the team in doing something about it?

"Life comes hard and fast," I suggested in an attempt to make him appreciate the importance of our work--Abbie's and mine.

"And sometimes it takes us by surprise," he said.

"You took the words right out of my mouth."

"Sir?" he said and I remembered that English isn't his native tongue and he's not fully equipped with all the gags and wheezes in the language.

"I was just about to say that," I said.

"My concern," he said, "is that fighting the negative forces seems ill advised. It's well known that struggling against magic, we become more entangled."

"Ah," I said, "having found a talking point. "We do not struggle. We do not fight."

"We?" he said.

"Abbie and I," I said.

Abbie sat up to receive the recognition.

"Yes," he said in a soupy sort of voice, "the cat."

Abbie squeaked and directed one cold eye in his direction. This cat is a weapon when annoyed and channels the ancient Irish hero, Chuhulain, when in fighting mode. When one eye becomes larger than the other and steam escapes from the seams, the wise observer gets into the lead-lined jacket.

"We don't oppose the Witch of Woodcroft," I explained. "She's full of good works. She pulls the elements of decay from our environment and uses it as compost to feed a garden of wholesome and healthy delights. It's all on her website. You can read all about it at your leisure."

"I don't consider it delightful to be pulled away from very important business with the court," he said.

"Yes, I fully understand," I said. "The dross of her distillation, if it is dross, accumulates to critical mass. Then a loud report is heard and something that would rather not, pops in or pops out of one world and into another.  Like you. It's all very disturbing."

"You'd go so far as that would you--disturbing? Well, what can you possibly do about it?"

"That's where our plan comes into play," I said and Abbie Hoffman, who seemed to have calmed somewhat, stopped washing a paw and gave Feldspar another warning look to make it clear that he would harbor no backtalk about cats.

 "We will intercept the dross as it accumulates and replace the negative charge with a positive one--an effect greatly to be preferred because it will be healthful and enjoyable."

"How do you intercept the accumulation of dross?" he said.

"Ah, there you have me. It's something that Abbie Hoffman does but it's a trade secret and known only to him. But intercept it he does and then we use the raw material of it, he and I, to build a humorous story and then have a laugh. You can't be hurt by something that makes you smile."

"That sounds like Fierce Living," he said. "It's the solution you write about for managing runaway emotions. You're writing a book aren't' you? Is it finished?"

"Almost," I said. "Thank you for asking and yes, I am talking about Fierce Living. It works on everything. It's unbounded; it's wild and free; it's as wide as the sky and as deep as the sea. Why don't you join us, Feldspar? It will be like old times. We will make a team of three and nothing can stop us."

"Well," he said and then looking at Abbie he added, "I don't know."

Abbie sat bolt upright at this, leveled a gaze at the troll and began washing the right paw with the intention, no doubt, of being prepared to deliver another single-whip or possibly a repulse-the-monkey or a white-crane-spreads-her-wings. I'm sure you would know better than I.

Then suddenly Abbie Hoffman jumped down from the desk and approached Feldspar. I wondered if he were advancing to attack but then realized he was sniffing the chair. It was at this very moment that I noticed a distinctive odor.

"What is that smell?" I said.

"When the curtain between the worlds was rent," began Feldspar, "I was meeting with a gaggle of goblins and I fear that one of them fell through with me and I inadvertently sat on him."

"A goblin is beneath you?" I said leaning forward to get a better look.

"I'm afraid it's true," he said.

"Shouldn't you let him up?"

"On no account will I be responsible for releasing a goblin into your world. Remember the Middle Ages, sir."

"Right," I said. "So when you pop back home, he will pop back with you, is that it?"

"We can only hope, sir."

"I'm never going to get the smell out of that chair."

"I suggest burning it," he said.