Mary Poppins Did It

I frequently dream of flying.  It is a wonderful feeling…until I wake up and find myself on terra firma.  I saw Mary Poppins do it with her brolly.  Little did I know as I hummed my way through Julie Andrews and Dick van Dyke’s extravaganza,  I would repeat her act in real life soon after; to my utter joy and delight.  I also did not know that my secret wish for years thereafter would be to do it again.  No matter how hard I tried, it would not happen!

Every morning Mother forced us to eat breakfast before we walked to school.  Two of my most hated repasts were, and still are, scorched scrambled eggs and soggy raisin bran.  Mother adds milk to her scramble.  It scalds more quickly than an egg and always tastes burnt.  I loathe it.

I used to love raisins.  That is until I ate my lifetime quota of them in one sitting, and constipated myself beyond recognition.  Now, they just look like bunny turds to me, and I refuse to eat them.  They remain just as offensive as wheat flakes turn to mush in your cereal milk.  No thank you!

After ditching one such foul breakfast and skipping off to school on a blustery mountain morning, I crossed 45^th South and fiddled my umbrella open on the sidewalk.  It wasn’t really raining – yet.  But it was threatening rain, and I had 3 more blocks to walk before reaching the edge of the playground of our elementary school.

I have always loved umbrellas.  I love the shape and design of them.  Slickers and galoshes are fine.  But an umbrella is a beautiful thing.  It is like an upside down flower.  With or without a hook, a rain sword.  It is a walking stick for everyone.  And when the wind turns them inside out, I think it is good luck!  And rain looks like glitter instead of rain when there is an umbrella involved.

So I opened my umbrella and proudly carried it over my head on the sidewalk.  The wind picked up a little.  I loved blustery days in a skirt.  It blew my hair wildly and caught my skirt.  The next gust was quite strong, and my umbrella caught it.  I felt myself running with the umbrella.  The next gust was so powerful,  I felt my feet leave the ground from my run and I was up  in the air!  I was looking down on the sidewalk and moving quite fast!  Oh the exhilaration I felt as that umbrella carried me!  I watched the world about 12 feet or so below, the sidewalk sliding by so rapidly beneath me, my skirt whipping in the wind!  And I began to laugh. 

Then, just as suddenly, the wind died.  I fell to the sidewalk below, tumbling to my knees.  My umbrella was bent and slightly broken on the grass a few feet away.  My knees skinned and bleeding, I looked around to see if anyone had seen me take flight.  A car drove by, but I was otherwise alone.  I gathered myself.  Picked up the twisted umbrella and did my best to hold it overhead just as it started to rain!

I limped the last block to school and went directly to the nurse’s office with my bleeding knees for first aid.

I pleaded with Mother for a new umbrella.  She finally relented.  And every day after that for years, I secretly hoped the winds would favor me again.  I was always a small child.  No reason the wind and an umbrella would not fly me a few blocks.  But it never happened again.  My knees still bear the beautiful scars of my flight. 

I promised Dad I would not skydive.  I learned how to hang glide at Kill Devil Hills when I was 18 on a wild date which was half dare with Jimmy Connell.  At first it feels like going up in a swing and not coming back down.  After you flare, you actually are flying.  I have been told hang gliding is probably more dangerous than skydiving.  For Dad’s sake, I hope not!  But it is not even close to umbrella flight.  I fly in my dreams on a disk of gold light.