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*Brian Wilcox. 'Androscoggin River Series~no. 15.'
Larry Walters, when age thirty-three, wanted to see his neighborhood from a new perspective. One morning he bought forty-five used weather balloons from the army surplus store. That afternoon he strapped himself into a lawn chair, to which some of his friends tied the helium-filled balloons. He took along a six-pack of beer, a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, and a BB gun, planning to shoot the balloons one at a time when he was ready to land.
Walters, assuming the balloons would lift him about one-hundred feet, was caught off guard when the chair soared eleven-thousand feet plus into the sky, and into the middle of the air traffic pattern at Los Angeles International Airport. Too scared to shoot any of the balloons, Walters remained airborne for more than two hours. This forced the airport to shut down its runways for much of the afternoon, resulting in long flight delays.
Soon after he was safely on ground and cited by the police, reporters asked Walters three questions. "Were you scared?," He replied, "Yes." "Would you do it again?" He replied, "No." "Why did you do it?" "Because, you can't just sit there."
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Assent is a creative act. It opens the inner heart space for something to be created rather than just performed.
*Robert Sardello. Silence.
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What I share in this writing is about living with Life as an adventure, one we can call a pilgrimage or sacred pilgrimage. And I say "living with Life," for life is not your life, my life, anyone's life, which is nothing more than either the details one calls life or the ignorant claim one can have life. Life was here before you appeared here. Life is, and we are invited by life to life: so, often I use the capital "L" to affirm this.
And in this living with Life, we need to know that a "Yes" is the move from being a performer, playing a role given us by others so to be like good boys and good girls, compliant, agreeable, to being creators, and somewhat dissident. We no longer prioritize fitting in, but living authentically, living with an open heart, but not merely being nice, rather being real, and being real can be a real threat to others. So, we welcome moving beyond being actors in the societal soap opera to living life from the heart, placing realness above being liked and seen as successful, spiritual, good, or anything that others can say of us to note approval of how we are and how we behave ourselves. The gift of Life becomes so much more important to us than our reputation, than what a he or a she or a they think about or say about us. We are not rebels, though, reacting against others in some prideful, egoic manner, we are lovers, responding to Life for the good of all, seeing that the good of all is our good, and our good is the good of all.
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“No, no! The adventures first, explanations take such a dreadful time.”
*Lewis Carroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass.
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When writing this posting, an adventure, my first date with a girl, Bonnie, arose to mind. I met her when I went to speak at her high school, by her invitation. She called me later to invite me to a meal at her parent's steak house outside McRae, Georgia, USA. Bonnie seemed comfortable that night, enjoying the meal, talkative, glad we were together. I was a shy youth, introverted, with few social skills. So, I ended up talking with her, with little eating, while she talked and ate and ate and ate. After a time, looking at her plate almost empty, I looked at mine, and I had barely eaten anything. This was an odd, what-do-I-do-now moment. This whole dating thing was unknown to me. A sense of being out-of-place, yet glad to be in-this-place. This was a new adventure, this teenage boy being with this lovely girl, one who appeared to be more experienced in being with boys or maybe just more socially skilled than I was at that time. Life can feel this way, like finding oneself in open sky, trying to fly with wings that come with no directions. Yet, too, this can be humorous, invigorating, and life-affirming, if we let it be. I have found much of my life to be like that night with Bonnie, glad to be here, and learning more and more how to embrace it just as it is, and move from that point of unknowing, and, yes, enjoying the unknowing. For really, do we not so much move out of the unknown as from unknown to unknown and more into the unknown?
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