I've been thinking about gravity. I guess that's to be expected when the person you love more than anything, the heart beat you've tied all of your tomorrows to, gets her private pilot's license as my partner did this past week.
Maybe I have the mind of a medieval peasant, but flying has always seemed vaguely blasphemous to me. Every time I board an airplane, I am haunted by some sort of inchoate guilt and a fear that I will not get away with it this time.
I'm not trying to defend my oddly theological attitude about the matter, but our language does indicate that this outlook might be a collective one. When a pilot flies or an athlete jumps some ungodly height or distance, we say they have "defied gravity." Gravity is a force that reigns over us. It is a "law" in the most fascist of senses. There is no procedure for overturning or invalidating it. When we fly or jump, we don't abolish the law of gravity; we merely defy it, the way an adolescent defies her parents only to find herself speedily exiled to the Siberia of her bedroom. "What goes up must come down," we are fond of saying. Not even the onslaught of postmodernism (a philosophical force that, according to many, has obliterated God and reduced moral absolutes to mere preferences) has put a chink of equivocation in this cherished platitude. Gravity always wins.
This past Saturday morning, my partner took me flying. It was her first flight as a certified private pilot. We had ambitions to fly to Bartow for the traditional "$100 hamburger" at Bunky's Barnstormin' Restaurant (the burger is $4.75, but the cost of the plane rental and the gas earn it the nickname) but once we got across the bay and I caught the view of St. Pete from the rear window, we decided to stay "in the pattern" (this is pilot speak for flying in circles) so I could take in the skyline for a while.
Did I mention it was a particularly glorious morning? We were out on the ramp "preflighting" the plane at sunrise. While my partner focused on ailerons, flaps and other mysteries, all I could think about were the cornfields on my grandma's farm in Indiana. Everything was that same kind of yellow and soft. We taxied to the runway and the rancid but beautiful water of Tampa Bay turned from black to green as the sun climbed higher. We took off and, once I got up the nerve to look, my hometown, so ordinary and familiar to me, had become exotic and beautiful. The Trop, the Vinoy, the Bank of America tower, Coffeepot Bayou, Snell Isle, USF St. Pete all glistened (they really glistened!) in the early morning sunlight. All of sudden, St. Pete was an incredible place to live.
Maybe it was my rekindled admiration for the city I call home or maybe we were just wicked hungry, but, upon landing, we decided to head to one of downtown's treasures, the Dome Grille, for breakfast. After our feast of fried eggs, grits and enough coffee to power a New York City block, we took a leisurely stroll down to St. Pete's Saturday Morning Market. As I savored the feel of every footfall on the firm and familiar pavement, my partner, her head apparently still in the clouds, turned philosophical: "Wouldn't it be cool if for 30 seconds every month gravity just stopped working?" She had been thinking about gravity too.
"That right there is evidence that there is no God," I said, displaying my unrivaled gift for turning chicken salad into chicken spit. "If there is a God and we are created in his or hers or its or whatever's likeness, then cool shit like that should happen all the time."
"We did just spend an hour flying." She smiled at me in this certain way she has that reminds me that I don't know anything about anything. I felt even more compelled to carry the argument to its conclusion.
"Physics is your department, but I'm pretty sure that, while we were up there, gravity's rules were still in effect."
"I suppose," she said, smiling even wider and taking hold of my hand. I would never tell her this, but I swear, for the next 30 seconds, I floated down Central Ave.
This article appears in Nov 26 – Dec 2, 2008.