I’ll Fly Away

I often feel like a stranger in my own life. Like I’m not me. I’m not sure who I am or if I’m truly here.

I have this theory that I’ve died. Many, many times. In multiple dimensions. I can even pinpoint moments when I suspect I’ve split. When a glitch occurred and I went on simultaneously in numerous directions. But of course the me I still am is only fully aware of the path that I’m still on.

Sometimes I feel as if I’m visiting my other selves in my dreams. Or maybe this is the dream. Maybe I’m really not this me at all. And maybe my impulse to tightly close my eyes and fly away is my real life calling me home.

On days like today, I’m overwhelming tempted to attempt to do so. If only I consciously remembered how.

---

Once when I was six, I was walking home from school. A day like any other. The same route; there was only one to take. A straight shot down one main drive which led to a cul de sac at the end of the line. I’d take a right on Sussex Court and at the very center of this winding, spiraling, suburban dream - just outside of the shiny new subdivision - was the misplaced old Victorian farmhouse where my family lived.

On this day I walked the nearly 30 minutes to the place where Sussex Court was supposed to be. But it wasn’t there. There was nowhere to turn right, just before Dundee Road; the busy, congested road that dissolved this middle class fantasy into another reality. The road on which my home was technically situated...deep in a little patch of forest buffering the two worlds from one another.

So I kept walking. Into a noisy, bustling construction site that wasn’t there when I’d left that morning. I began to panic, the sensation of tears welling up in my eyes, a sharp sting enveloping my brain and stealing my breath. I had no idea where I was. I only knew that it wasn’t possible to be there.

In the midst of a sea of yellow-hatted blurry men rythymically working in perpetual motion, I found a solitary, stationary one. He was inhumanly tall, his hat was in focus, and his pulsating left hand held tightly to a clipboard.

“Little girl,” he boomed in an imposing bravado as his foreboding black eyes systematically bounced over his notes, “You can’t be here.”

I tried to explain to him that my street was missing but he wouldn’t listen. He just kept repeating over and over, “You can’t be here.”

I began to bawl uncontrollably. And he asked if I was lost.

“No. I’m. Not. Lost,” I gulped, “My entire street is lost. It’s supposed to be right here.”

“Maybe you made a wrong turn,” said the man as we both looked back down the long, lone, straight, turnless road I’d walked to arrive to this impossible place and I saw it in his eyes. He knew as well as I did that his words could not be true.

“Look,” he said, “Why don’t you walk back...all the way to where you started and try again.”

It seemed the only reasonable option to us both. And so I did.

---

After a minute or two I felt the air change - the world shift - as I re-emerged into the familiar atmosphere in which I lived. It smelled right. Sounded normal. And I wanted to turn around. To see if my street had reappeared. But I didn’t dare. Instead, I took large deliberate steps punctuated by deep inhalations and deeper exhalations. All the way back to the front door of my school.

I gracefully pivoted on the balls of my feet, took a beat, a deep breath, and retraced the well-worn path home with exaggerated elephant steps - throwing all of my weight, every ounce of my intention, into each and every one - all the way back to Sussex Court.

And this time it was there.

---

When I burst into my house, I was greeted by the antique clock on the wall just to the left of the kitchen door. It confirmed almost two lost hours. As did my angry mother. I was in big trouble for being so late and my tall tale wasn’t helping matters. I was sent to my room until dinner and eventually sentenced to a week's punishment for being late and refusing to confess the truth of my whereabouts.

Everything was in place, predictable, just as I’d left it. Everything, that is, except for me. I felt fragmented. I wasn’t quite the same and I knew I’d never be again.

It turned out that there was construction about a quarter mile to the left of the street on which I walked every day. A small townhouse community was expanding. My parents insisted that I must have accidentally walked past Sussex Court, turned the opposite direction on Dundee Road - which didn’t even have a sidewalk - and wandered several extra blocks into that construction site. I knew I had not. But there was no use arguing.

The next day at school I befriended a girl who lived in those townhouses. I got myself invited over just so that I could see it for myself. Just so that I could confirm that I’d never been there before. I had not.

---

Weeks passed. Months. Even years. At first any time I’d bring up the incident, my parents would tell me I was an amazing little actress to hold so tightly to my story. But eventually they tried to convince me - and subsequently themselves - that I’d simply dreamt the whole thing.

I’ll never truly know what really happened that day. At least not in this lifetime. And that’s okay. But the one thing I’m certain of is this: that was the day I learned that I have the power to fly away.