brain vacation

My brain has decided to take a vacation and not invite me.

I'm in my studio for the second day this year because I've been residing in bed since New Year's. My brain started hurting last week when I was working on a new design in my studio. On New Year's Eve after seeing It's Complicated and laughing my ass off, I went flying with a friend over McKinney until it became the new year. I'm not sure if my brain landed with me.

It was a full moon and a blue moon. It was also John Denver's birthday. We took off around 11:48 at night. I was in the back seat clicking pictures of the lights and the moon, when the pilot told me to take over. There went my picture taking, at least the shots that weren't blurry.

I love to fly. I love to take off. It's one of my greatest highs. It's the landings I'm not so excited about. I'm not thrilled about taxiing slowly down the runway turning towards the hangars. I don't enjoy undoing my seat belt and taking off my headset.

Takeoffs are exceptionally orgasmic for me. There's not a cell in my body that's not turned on and tuned in. There's something so amazingly seductive about being above it all, seeing the ground below, the ant-sized people until they are nothing but dots and then nothing at all.

This is freedom. This is unadulterated freedom. This is mind-blowing, breath-taking, and well, for lack of anything better to say, just far out! Thank you, John, for that.

The point I want to make though is that I don't think my brain came back down with me. I've been floating and unable to comprehend the simplest of tasks since. Is it because it's been so long since my last flight in a single-engine? Is it because it's been even longer since I had my hands on a stick? (And I mean that in oh so many ways...)

I am meant to live above it all, above the pettiness and drama that resides here. They are not my friends or my people. My people are lax and loose and free. My people see no boundaries or reason to blame. Situations and people in their lives are clear mirrors to their own thoughts about themselves. They are grateful instead of blaming. They are in joy instead of in sadness. You ought to feel their excitement when I'm up in the stars. When I'm steadying my camera lens at the blue moon outside the cockpit.

It's the stars and the clouds and the sky and the moon and the sun that's home to me. Coming back down, feeling the tires land on the runway, and the propeller slow down makes my brain take a vacation without me.

Next time I'm going with it.