Dear Flygirl, How Awesome Are You? & Other Thoughts On Dreams

Can I say I’m impressed? I am. Kimberly Anyadike took off from Compton the first week of July with an adult safety pilot and Levi Thornhill, an 87-year-old who served with the Tuskegee Airmen during World War II. They flew to Newport News, Va., making about a dozen stops along the way. Kimberly is thought to be the youngest African American girl to have flown herself across the country.

She started flying when she was twelve.

It gives me goosebumps to hear what young adults can do. Tip of the hat to C.K., who sent me this awesome news via the Feministing website.

Sometimes when I hear stories about the amazing accomplishments of young adults, I find that I’m dabbing my toe in a big puddle of self-pity. If only, I think. If only I’d been more than average. If only our family had had the kind of money that it takes to do x, y, and z. If only people wouldn’t have looked at me and thought, “Oh, it’s just another one of those Davis girls.” If only I wasn’t so shy. I could have done stuff like that, if only…

If I could, I’d snap myself out of it by scoffing, “Dude, you’re envying a ten year old,” or something equally cutting, but that doesn’t work. Most of the time, when you’re on a “if only” jag like that, you like the idea of living your life backwards, of stepping into the timestream with the “if I knew then what I know now,” safely stored in your brain. You’d right old wrongs, make sure you never wore a bad outfit, clean up your acne and come out shining, with a surefire cure for every ill, and a major publishing contract when you’re twenty-one. You’d be everyone’s Girl Friday.

And we’d all live Happily Ever After. Or something.

The world worships youth culture (but disrespects young adults most of the time), and that love leads us into bad places sometimes. It lets us believe that we have nothing in the now, that “If Only” and regret are our only options. It leads us to believe that since the prom is over, so is everything sparkly and good and fun in life. We can only imitate and reminisce and rally ’round the Botox. And that’s a lie. You know this. And I know.

The problem with those “if only”-ies, too, is that I think sometimes we’re asking ourselves. “Could I have done that? Could I be so awesome?” The answer, invariably, is yes.

Tech Boy introduced me to the blog of a very intelligent person, CJ Cherryh, who has written over forty science fiction novels, won the Hugo Award four times, among other awards, and is generally dusted with starlight and sugar sprinkles as far as the SFF world is concerned. Like anyone, she’s not had everything her own way in life, but she’s worked with what she has. What impresses me about her is that she’s doing what she wants now. She and her best friend started taking ice skating in their fifth and sixth decade of life. And not just ice skating — figure skating. This summer, they’ve taken canoe lessons, and after a bit, managed to stay in the canoe. They figured out how to use a tractor and dug themselves a pond. They constantly amuse and amaze, and they don’t sit around thinking “if only.” They do things. And that’s the difference between having a life and dreaming about one. That’s the difference between my teen self, and any other teen who was moving and shaking and inventing boy bands or whatever. Usually, living means you just do something. And the good news is, it’s never too late to get a life. I’m so counting on that.

I’m not yet in my fifth or sixth decade– I’m just getting comfortable with my third. But I feel like I have a lot to do, and no time to lose. I don’t think I want to fly a plane by myself, but I think I’d like to try parasailing. I’ve already got a snake, but I think I want a big lizard. I’ll probably dye a blue streak in my hair, and wear checkerboard tights. Maybe learn interpretive dance, along with ASL. Possibly tap dance, and learn to salsa. Be in a musical. Wear fake lashes. Have a greenhouse. Grow vanilla. Go snow camping. Survive a blizzard (preferably not whilst snow camping.) Learn to play the cello, the ukulele (I’ve priced one!), and get a real wooden recorder. Do sand art with Tibetan monks. Make Robin’s chocolate zucchini bread with cherries…

This culture of regret is overrated.

Hola to all of my friends in India, China and Japan, who are today witnessing the longest total eclipse of the 21st century. Eclipses both excited me and freaked me right out when I was a kid, but they always passed too quickly. This one is going to hang around for six minutes!