She’d flown like this before, in her dreams. Breaking the bounds of the conscious mind, her psyche would soar over towns and fields, ecstatic at the feeling of freedom. Yet those dream-flights were never long enough. Her mind, believing this couldn’t really happen, always pulled her down to earth. As the rational asserted itself, her imagination fought back against reason and practicality, tried to will herself to stay airborne. If only she could push her analytic mind into a box, the flying dream could go on for just a bit longer! But the pull of earth was strong, and her leaps always grew shorter and shorter, until finally she was grounded for good, living inside the only reality she had ever known.
But not here! Amanda was fully conscious, fully awake, yet still flew. Experimenting, she imagined bending to the left and immediately began to bank in that direction, even though she hadn’t moved a muscle. She pictured herself soaring to the right, and where her mind went, her body followed. In a moment she was swooping from side to side in broad curves, with Hope winging along in formation beside her.
I can fly! Amanda exulted. Wherever I think of, I go—I don’t have to exert myself or move a muscle unless I choose to. Awesome! And I seem to have escaped the pull of gravity. If I want, I can obey it and walk around on the ground; or ignore it and rise (here she zoomed upward) whenever I care to.
The bracing air billowed through her hair, smelling of jasmine and cinnamon and a hundred other exotic scents, all blending together and yet distinct. Years later she could still remember some of them, although words failed when she tried to describe the sensation they created inside her. She would always end up saying, “They smell like flying!”
Amanda remembered her hesitation at the edge of the cliff and laughed. This is what I was afraid of? Right now, floating miles above the earth, fear of falling seemed like the silliest thing she could imagine. I was so hyper about whether he would catch me! But I was in a world where gravity is optional and you can fly—and he knew it all along! To him, some of the stuff we agonize over must seem like a total hoot.
Hit by a new idea, she launched into a barrel-roll, screaming with delight. Then it was all loops and spins and power-dives for what seemed like half an hour. Hope flew beside her and around her and inside her loops, celebrating with her the joy of flying through heaven on the wings of trust.
