*NOTE* -- I wrote the following in 2006. I now live in a different country and do life with a different partner, a man who reflects love, adventure and gentleness to me daily; I am no longer afraid for my marriage. My sister and I spoke this morning (she made me laugh) and my brother is sober and shining the light of his smile everywhere he goes, somehow selling something full of goodness after all the shit he's been sold.
Can the wolf fly? I am here to tell you, yes.
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I think the fact that most people get married and have children proves that most people are undeniably and irreversibly mad. Push through the smiles and happy stories of any person’s childhood and you will find a mess. You will find out that their parents are insane, their siblings dysfunctional and their heritage stiff and strange at best, dark and psychotic at worst. And yet what do most people do? They get married, and they have kids. They perpetuate and encourage this madness called family... they just don’t learn. Isn’t the definition of insanity something like: “to do something exactly the same way a thousand times and to hope for different results on the 1001st time.” We are all mad.
As I sat in the waiting room for my glorious back-cracking this morning I could not help but notice a small boy who was also waiting. He was probably about seven years old, and was very beautiful. It soon became apparent that he was different than most seven year old boys. Maybe autism, maybe something else... it was hard to pin down, but some rhythm in his little self made his every word and movement somehow stand out in the room – he was different.
He sat across the room from his Mom and yelled out,
“Can I take off my coat Mom?”
“Yes, you can take off your coat.”
“Mom, can I put it on the floor Mom?”
“No sweetie, put it on the chair next to you."
“Mom, where do I live on this map, Mom? Where does Darcy live on this map, Mom?”
Every thought in his head was instantly transformed into a question, and his mother’s answers stayed the course; her words were neither self conscious nor impatient - the pace between them familiar.
As their endless cycle continued across the waiting room a woman entered the building with a baby on her hip and a dog on a leash – the boy was ecstatic.
“MOM, Mom look... can I hold the baby Mom? Is that a baby Mom?”
“Ask permission first honey – you can look but don’t touch.”
Hesitation was impossible; he quickly addressed the new mother.
“Is that a baby?”
She responded in a twinkly voice with light and fluffy pride as if she had just magically arrived by bubble, “Haha, why yes it is.”
“Can I kiss it?”
Her light and fluffy shrank a bit.
“Oh...well, he’s a little sick so let’s just look at him.”
With that the boy stood up out of his chair and began to flail his arms around and with nearly violent animation he yelled on the top of his lungs,
“HELLO??!!! HI THERE! HI BABY!!! HI!!!!!!!!”
The baby looked stunned and confused, and the boy was delighted by this response.
The baby could only hold his attention for so long - he soon ceased his dramatic baby greeting and shifted his attention to the dog.
“Is that a dog?”
“Yes.”
“Is he a wolf?”
“No.”
“He is a really pretty wolf... can he jump? JUMP BOY!” and with that he whisked his arms to the sky in invitation to the small wolf. The dog owner maturely intervened, “Well he can jump, but let’s not get him to jump while we’re inside...”
The boy complied.
As the adults began to converse and laugh at a level higher than his intellect and his body, I watched as he continued to look at the tiny wolf - and then suddenly his face changed; it looked like he had just seen Santa Claus. His eyes snapped wide and wonder filled his face... he again looked up to the owner of the tiny, jumping wolf and asked with blatant and urgent interruption,
“Can he fly? Can he FLY??”
The question hung in the air for a moment.
Other adults looked at each other knowingly... their looks said “Poor crazy boy... how embarrassing.” The owner nervously laughed and said loudly so that all would know she was handling the situation appropriately, “No, he can’t fly; dogs can’t fly.”
His face fell, but only for a moment. His wonder was not so easily deflated. “Hell, she was wrong about the wolf thing, she's probably wrong about the flying thing... I bet she’s never even asked the wolf if he can fly” he seemed to be thinking. And if the wolf couldn’t fly, maybe the baby could.
I was stunned by his question and by his lack of self-consciousness; he was stunning. I felt impatience and anger for the people who thought he was crazy – for the piece of me that thought he was crazy. His hope was so clear in that moment that I almost couldn’t look at him – I almost had to just write him off as crazy. Dogs OR wolves flying... ludicrous... scandelous.
I miss my sister. We haven’t talked for almost nine months. I miss her most when something hilarious happens to me – I can laugh with my sister like no one else.
I am angry for my brother. I want to make the world a better place for him – a place that doesn’t try with all it’s might to make hope and goodness seem like shams sold by a cheap salesman. I hate not being a better salesman than the world.
I am afraid for my marriage. I am tired of feeling the definition of insanity every day as I look at my reflection in the mirror of my husband's eyes – why do I always think tomorrow will be different? Why can I feel so much in my dreams and so little in my waking life? Maybe it will be different tomorrow. Maybe it won’t be.
I am growing more and more cynical towards our country and its leaders. Why is it that no matter what goodness and strength humanity intrinsically has been given, it is inevitably the greed and corruption and violence that take the trophy? Government and leadership seem more like a mockery each time a ‘good’ man falls, and they just keep falling.
I wish I was a crazy seven year old again.
I want to look at my sister and my brother and my husband and my country like I just saw Santa Claus. I want to gaze into the vast canyon of silence and anger and hopelessness and lift up my eyes and ask, with the answer already written in wonder on my face, “Can it fly? Can it FLY?”
Maybe madness and hope are very close cousins. Maybe they are even lovers.
Maybe they are both.
Scandelous.
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