SportCruiser

I took a flying lesson on my 33rd birthday, instead of calling you

Or parking on the block where our old place used to be

Genesee, genesee, genesee

Pathetic, I know - but sometimes I still like to park on that street

And have lunch in the car just to feel close to you

I was once in love with my life here

In that studio apartment with you

Little yellow flowers on the tops of trees as our only view

Out of the only window

Big enough for me to see our future through

But it turned out I was the only one who could see it

Stupid apartment complex

Terrible you

You, who I wait for

You, you, you

Like a broken record stuck on loop

So that day, on my birthday, I thought

Something has to change

You can’t always be about waiting for you

Don’t tell anyone, but part of my reasoning

For taking the flight class, was this idea that if I could become my own navigator

The captain of the sky

That perhaps I could stop looking for direction

From you

Well, what started off as an idea on a whim

Has turned into something more

Too shy to explain to the owners that my first lesson was just a one-time thing

I’ve continued to go to classes each week

At the precious little strip off Santa Monica and Bundy

And everything was going fine

We were starting with dips and loops

And then something terrible happened

During my fourth lesson in the sky

My instructor, younger than I, but as tough as you

Instructed me to do a simple maneuverer

It’s not that I didn’t do it

But I was slow to lean the sports cruiser into a right hand upward turn

Scared, scared that I would lose control of the plane

Not tactfully and not gently

The instructor shook his head, and without looking at me said

You don’t trust yourself

I was horrified

Feeling as though I’d somehow been found out

Like he knew me

How weak I was

Of course, he was only talking about my ability as a pilot in the sky

But I knew it was meant for me to hear those words

For me, they held a deeper meaning

I didn’t trust myself

Not just 25, 000 feet above the coast of Malibu

But with anything

And I didn’t trust you

I could’ve said something but I was quiet

Because pilots aren’t like poets

They don’t make metaphors between life and the sky

In the midst of this mid-life, meltdown, navigational exercise in self-examination

I also decided to do something else I always wanted to do

Take sailing lessons in the vibrant bay of Marina del Ray

I signed up for the class as Elizabeth Grant

And nobody blinked an eye

So, why was I so sure that when I walked

Into the tiny shack on Valley Way, someone would say

You’re not a captain of a ship, or a master of the sky!

No, the fisherman didn’t care, and so neither did I

And for a brief moment, I felt more myself than ever before

Letting the self proclaimed drunkard captain’s lessons

Wash over me like the foamy tops of the sea

Midway through my forehead burned

And my hands raw from driving

The captain told me the most important thing I’d need to know on the sea

Never run the ship into irons

That’s nautical terms for not sailing the boat directly into the wind

In order to do that though, you have to know where the wind is coming from

And you might not have time to look up to the mast

Or up further to the weathervane

So you have to feel where the wind is coming from

On your cheeks, and by the tips of the white waves from which direction they’re rolling

To do this, he gave me an exercise

He told me to close my eyes, and asked me

To feel on my neck which way the wind was blowing

I already knew I was going to get it wrong

The wind is coming from everywhere, I feel it all over I told him

No, he said “the wind is coming from the left

The portside

I sat waiting for him to tell me You don’t trust yourself

But he didn’t, so I said it for him

“I don’t trust myself”

He laughed gentler than the pilot

But still not realising that my failure

In the exercise was hitting me at a much deeper lever

It’s not that you don’t trust yourself, he said

It’s simply that you’re not a captain

It isn’t what you do

Then he told me he wanted me to practise everyday so I would get better

Which grocery store do you go to? He asked

To the Ralphs in the Palisades, I replied

“Okay. When you’re in the Ralphs in the Palisades

I want you, as you're walking from your car to the store

To close your eyes, and feel which way the wind is blowing

Now, I don’t want you to look like a crazy person crouching

In the middle of the parking lot

But everywhere you go

I want you to try and find which way the wind is coming in from

And then, determine if it’s from the port or starboard side

So when you’re back on the boat you have a better sense of it”

I thought his advice was adorable

I could already picture myself in the parking lot

Squinting my eyes with perfect housewives looking on

I could picture myself growing a better sense of which way the wind was blowing

And as I did, a tiny bit of deeper trust also began to grow within myself

I thought of mentioning it

But I didn’t

Because captain’s aren’t like poets

They don’t make metaphors between sea and sky

And as I thought that to myself

I realized

That’s why I write

All this circumnavigating the earth

Was to get back to my life

Six trips to the Moon for my poetry to arise

I’m not a captain

I’m not a pilot

I write!

I write