When I was about 14 years old, I could lay in bed at night and slowly separate all feeling from my body. I would reach the point where I could not command my body to move. Then it was easy to slip away by just reaching out to where I wished to go.
I would seem to be flying completely free and weightless, but the strange thing was that there was sometimes no in-between from where I was to where I went. I would be one place and then the other without knowing how I got there. I had to concentrate to be able to fly in between.
Flying was the sheer joy of complete freedom. I was always naked when I did that, I was not nude, I was naked and loved it. My soul was naked to the world and I loved everything I saw. That is why I love to go naked now whenever I can.
I could fly billions of miles out into space and dance in the neon beauty of gas clouds between the stars. I could never approach a star or another planet very close because I would run into some kind of resistance to all motion. It would become harder and harder the closer I got. Kind of like swimming through honey.
I always felt that someone important had taught me how to fly, but I could not remember who it was. I just knew. Sometimes I could hear voices far away, or singing. I could never make out the words. If I tried to follow where it was it would suddenly become quiet, but I never felt alone. I didn't even think about loneliness.
There came a time, all too soon, when I began to become self-conscions about my own body. My breasts were too small, and my feet too big. I was too fat, my teeth were not perfectly straight and I couldn't make my hair behave like the other girls could. So at night on my bed, I became too painfully aware of my body and my worries of the day. I also began to wonder if any boy would ever care for me. I was so ugly! (I thought.)
I don't know when it happened or how, but flying was no longer important. I convinced myself it was all just a beautiful dream spawned by my imagination. No longer did I dance and sing to the universe, taking a million miles for just one pirouette.
I got so caught up in "real science," also, that I was ashamed to tell anyone about it or even dwell on it. Mathematics and science killed my dreams for a while, but now they are coming back. And it's probably because of them that I think maybe what I did was real. I have tried often over these past few years, to do it again but I can never seem to be in a quiet enough place- either in the world or in my mind. Not now, but someday, I will fly again.
