Aloft

I find myself rather speechless tonight. I had the fine fortune of being near a large television projection of the Olympics this evening and couldn't resist the combination of men's skiing aerials and the women's figure skating long program. Both combine an amazing amount of skill and strength and artistry that I find my breath, and tonight my words, utterly stolen away. They have been hidden from me and I doubt I shall find either again until tomorrow. Or later today, depending on your point of view. Aside from my ambitions to be a veterinarian or astronomer as a child I was most intrigued by these two events, pole vaulting, and karate. I think karate was really just based upon my desire to get back at all those boys in first grade who tugged on my pigtails every day, but the others were about height and freedom and power. About flight. I know the smiles are part of the act (in skating at least) but you can see the energy in the limbs of the ones who love the moment they are in and the prowess they possess. I have rarely felt this kind of elation myself - once in a while after a particularly good throw or catch in ultimate, and once upon a time when I beat a girl in a cross-country race after trading positions repeatedly for the last half mile. Leapfrogging. I fought to be the toad without a belly of rocks and I was. These are the experiences you can't plan to repeat - you can only hope for and dream of and work towards. I find myself increasingly without motivation as the days pass and I am heartbroken by the downward-tending lutulent reality I find myself imposing internally. (I've been carrying that phrase around for days. Thank god for Joyce. Thank god for George reading it.) Scott Hamilton was very critical of the skaters who lacked "fire" in their program, who lacked the passion to demonstrate their purpose, their spark. You have to throw yourself in completely, recover after the falls, stick the landings, learn from the experience, look back without regret. The glass-box stage. So often we are in mid-leap and can't enjoy the suspension, can't relax into the landing, can't see anything but the precipice or the goal.
Maybe the solution isn't to enjoy each leap more, but simply to leap more often.