||| MIDNIGHT MUTTERINGS by JACKIE BATES |||
‘Hope’ is the thing with Feathers
By Emily Dickinson
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
Emily Dickinson wrote this poem a long time ago. More recently, maybe only a half century ago, Woody Allen wrote a book titled Without Feathers which I read then but only remember the title. I thank both Emily and Woody for today’s Mutterings title:
By the time you read this I will have flown across part of the Pacific Ocean and landed safely, I hope, on the Hawaiian Island Oahu. Or more properly O’ahu. I know. Poor me. All that sun, warm water to swim in, good friends to travel with whom I met more than thirty years ago on a different island. I like to travel. I like to go to new places and see how other people live. I like to see animals and birds that I haven’t seen before. I like to learn about civilizations that developed long before we interlopers arrived and took over what is now North America. We like to think our ancestors discovered this land.
So while I like travel, my main planning task is how to get to the place I want to visit in the most comfortable way. For me, getting there on a plane is not my favorite. I prefer ships or trains. Airplanes, not so much. I can’t help thinking that if I were meant to fly, I’d have some feathers. Or at least some wings. Leathery and/or scaly, if I were more closely related to dinosaurs. Or soft with an almost invisible fur if related to a bat. Or gossamer wings, if my close relatives were butterflies, or even fragile wings if my cousins were mosquitoes. But wings of some kind if I were meant to fly. It just seems wrong, I wasn’t meant to fly and I don’t like to do it.
Possibly it’s my family. Too many pilots. My father not only flew open cockpit planes, but he had a perfectly legal looking pilot’s license when he died at age 96. He liked to present it when he was asked for identification. The reason it seemed legal, was because he got it so long ago that it had no expiration date. Then there’s my brother who trained in the Air Force and flew those jets that carried fuel and refueled other jets in the air. Later he was a pilot for Delta Airlines, with a generous friends and family program which took me on some of my favorite travels. I was grateful for the program which carried me around the world, frequently in First Class, but I was never comfortable in the air. No feathers. Then there were my nephews who were pilots. All male, so far. The one female family pilot was my brother’s wife, who earned a pilot’s license to use when or if my brother were felled by a stroke or heart attack in the air, she would be able to land one of the several small planes my brother owned. I was never interested in learning to fly. And I’ll be nervous when I fly to Hawaii. Not so nervous that I’d rather stay home, unwilling to fly in a plane because I can’t fly it on my own. Maybe it’s because I imagine the pilots are just someone’s older brother whose judgement is questionable. Maybe it’s just another silly neurosis.
So maybe Columbus had a younger sister who didn’t trust her brother’s judgement and didn’t want to go along to discover America, even if she had been allowed to. All I know is that I will enjoy my time on land and in the water in Hawaii more than I will the trip to and from the island. We’ll see if I have matured sufficiently to overcome my fear of flying. Maybe I’ll fall asleep instead of holding up the plane with my will power. I hope so. We’ll see.
I think it was comedian Flip Wilson who had something to say about Columbus discovering America. He pointed out that when Columbus arrived, in the Bahamas, the land was occupied and being used. He went on to say that he, Flip, might ‘discover’ a Cadillac convertible, and lay claim to it even if it contained a driver and passengers. Why, Flip asked, could he not claim the Cadillac for himself and his country.
On You Tube, I found a longer piece in which Flip Wilson explores the idea of Columbus and his interactions with the people who lived in the place which Columbus was discovering — ‘America.’ In my opinion, it’s one of the best comedic pieces I’ve ever seen. I would like to put the link here. However when I attempted to do that, my efforts only allowed me to reproduce a photograph of Flip Wilson. So you are on your own finding the piece I’m talking about, Try going to YouTube and look for: Flip Wilson on Columbus discovers America.
Possibly, I’ll discover a new place (to me) on Oahu. Does it matter if it’s already occupied and being used? Perhaps we need a new term, something other than ‘discovered.’
