2003-12-03 - 12:22 a.m.

I am generally a pretty rational person. I may be over-emotional sometimes but the things I believe in, try for, hope for, whatever, are generally rooted in some sort of evidence to which I feel I have good reason to give creedence. (Love doesn’t count. Try too hard to be rational about love and you miss the point) I am telling you this now so I can totally discredit it in the next sentence.

I am a rational person, and I also believe I can fly. That’s levitation, homes. Rationally I know that I can’t but that doesn’t change the simple fact that I know that I can. Or rather, that I used to be able to... or will be able to some day. See, the problem with this belief is it isn’t rooted in anything solid, so I can’t tell where it came from. As such, I can’t figure out where to start to make it true.

I know it starts with the dreams. I have flying dreams. Who doesn’t? In mine, I always suddenly remember how to fly, like I knew it all along. Like it’s something I used to do all the time, stopped doing and lost the knack for. I can never pin down why I ever would have stopped, I just did.

In my dreams it’s not like I’m always soaring over my city, looking down on people and all that stuff. Sometimes I am just practicing. I recently had one in which I remembered how to fly in a bookstore. Some little thing triggered a memory of childhood and with great concentration I forced myself to remember how it worked. Eventually, through hand motions that mainly just helped me focus, I was able to lift myself off the ground by mere inches. I could have done more, but this was practice. I would drift forward, down the stairs, and back again. I would weave between people barely any higher than if I were walking past them. I would lift my legs at the waist like I was sitting in the air and slide forward through the room like that, moving with little more than movement of my hand.

Two nights ago I had one that was more of the soaring and swooping variety, but still not that simple. I wasn’t just flying for the sake of it, it was of grave importance that I get something somewhere and that’s when I remembered I could fly, and so I did.

That’s how they always go. I am always remembering it like it’s something I used to always do. And it’s so vivid that when I wake up, for a second, I honestly believe I can do it. Like I really did just remember this skill from childhood. It lasts just long enough to grab onto my consciousness for those few seconds until I feel how heavy I am against the bed. I feel every inch of myself that’s pressing against the mattress and suddenly feel devoid of energy. But eventually I force myself up and trudge my way to the shower and eventually the feeling of having come close and lost something amazing fades away into my rationale. But the feeling that some day I’m going to unlock it never does.

Occasionally, on really quiet, lazy days, I will sit and concentrate on my whole body. I will retreat in my mind and think about every part of me and what’s touching something and what isn’t and in the spots where I am in contact with something I will try to will myself into the air. I feel a lightness and energy spreading over those parts of my body and I will feel some sort of force like eventually it’s going to be just enough to lift me off whatever it is. But then I begin to think about it more rationally, think about the fact that while I feel lighter there, I haven’t moved at all. I’m still sunk into the couch the exact same amount I was before, my leg muscles are being pressed in the same shape. I think, if those are true, obviously I’m not any lighter. Then I think, who cares? Maybe I will be soon if I keep trying but the feeling is gone. I can’t recapture that sense of energy that was there before. I can’t fake it which makes me feel more like it was real but now that the rationality has hit I can’t make it happen again now matter how hard I try to make myself believe. But deep down I still get this feeling, however stupid it may be, that some day I’m going to do it. I’m going to quell that sense in my head that what I’m doing doesn’t make sense and thus won’t happen and I’m going to just force myself to try, and keep trying, until one day I find myself resting happily on a cushion of air molecules just inches above my futon and when that happens, nothing else in the world will matter.