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PARTISAN REVIEW
flow. The youngish man, who is talking-about his baby sister, says next: "If
she attempts it, she'll fail for sure. She's not a capable person."
The elderly woman asks: "But is she sincere? Does she really want to
kill
herself?"
I've chosen a bad day for my solo.
If
the weather closes in I'll be shut
out of heaven through no fault of my own. (Faith can be carried too far, I've
been told. But I don't think that's my problem.) There's a thick cloud cover–
a five thousand foot ceiling - that may lift or might lower. If it lowers I'm lost
for I must go down; I have no instruments. My craft can't see through
clouds, which is contradictory I think, and sad, since clouds are what heaven
is made of and I feel light as an angel. I do have an altimeter, which tells me
how high I am, and a turn indicator, whjch shows how steeply I am bankillg,
and of course gauges for readings of airspeed, rpm's, gas and fuel consump–
tion. But nothing for what is called an instrument situation, for blind flying in
douds.
Even when they most deny it, younger people know that experience
teaches best, and they look to older adults for counsel. In the living room,
where a family has gathered, the elderly woman says: "We should have
advised marriage but that wasn't taking the long view, and it was the long
view that was wanted."
The younger man looks exceedingly mournful, and fatuous besides, like
a depressed beagle hound. "No," he says, "we didn't want her to be pres–
sured into anything. Later she would have tried to escape."
The middle-aged woman says: "But she's trying to escape now. Our
plan backfired."
Sky puffy like a comforter. If it could be thrown off it would reveal a
blue sheet on which I could lie and at last be able to sleep.
On overcast mornings, like this one, my mother says the sky will clear
if there's enough blue in it to make a sailor's suit. Not only do I not know if
she is right about this, but I don't know what she means by "enough." How
big was the sailor whose suit appears in the sky - size is relative. Was he as
fat as the sun, or as tall as a rainbow - or merely lifesize ... .Terms must be
more definite,
if
a parent is to be understood by a child.
My brother, in his Beechcraft Bonanza, is doing S turns over a road.
He hates wasting time even when there's a life at stake. The tragedy in
general aviation today lies in our inability to communicate, one plane to an–
other. We can talk to the ground-bound, to the controllers, but not to the air–
borne, to the pilots. But if I could talk to those close to me, what would I tell
them? That I can't reproduce myself ... they know this. And whose fault it
is that I can't they know too.
