Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Dramatic Premises and Themes

Dramatic Premises and Themes

It has been very difficult for me to learn to fly a radio-controlled airplane. I am not sure why but it seems to be more of the same struggle I have encountered in other endeavors of learning to do things that are difficult and complex.

I bought Linda an RC plane called a Vapor. Last night we went to the gym the club uses for winter flying. I was able to make a few loops in a state of semi-control before a catastrophic encounter with the bleachers. My learning curve is progressing in fits and starts but as bad as a given trial may look I am getting better.

Then it was Linda’s turn. Last week she did fairly good for the first time and got the airplane up and circled a bit. Last night however she flew into the cinderblock wall and really clocked her aircraft big-time.

Try and visualize all these airplanes buzzing around a high school gym at the same time. Some are big, some are small, some go-fast and some float like butterflies. Well Linda tried to avoid the flight patter and rather than moving into the larger space tried to fly in the corner. It was her downfall.

We do that in life a whole lot. Especially writers. We try and fly in the corner rather than venture into the spaces of life. We try and do too much inside the constraints of our own minds rather than venturing outside the safety of our comfort zones. However, regardless how you measure success there are costs associated with flying in the corner of your box. You not only have to think outside it you have go outside it.

Linda got mad at me when I said, “Fly into the space Honey. If somebody collides with you so be it. If you don’t you are certain to run into a wall.” She did and wasn’t too happy with her husband pointing it out to her. She was upset because she just destroyed a hundred dollars worth of airplane… that learning the skill was frustrating when everything in her life always came to her comparatively easy. The same is true for my daughters. They don’t deal well with the vicissitudes ("Slings and Arrows?") of “Outrageous Fortune.”

Since we both retired we have to learn to cope with each other. It is like being newly weds all over again. We invade each others space and rather than find a life outside each other we hover too much… Anyway we are trying to do more things together. Like the women I see clinging to their husbands on the back of motorcycles, I admire them for having the willingness to share their husband’s world. There are two other women who come to the Friday night flying. One flies just like her husband and the other chases down her husband’s airplane when he crashes it. Lady # 2 doesn’t smile much but, since her husband is on oxygen, plays a key role in what he can and can’t do.

If there is a message in this blog I am not sure what it is. Maybe the theme is “No man (woman) is an island onto themselves.” (...Gagging sound, finger in throat.) How about “Don’t offer commentary when your sweetie pie just trashed a hundred dollar airplane?” (…That she never asked for to begin with.)”