Day 769: 5 Minute Freewrite: Thursday - Prompt: paper plane (and, The Posture of Innocence, day 36)
Captain Lee begins his weekend with renewed energy, and a return to soaring memories ...
To get totally caught up on The Posture of Innocence, here are the prologue, day 1, day 2, day 3, day 3.5, day 4, day 4.5, day 5, day 5.5, day 6, day 7, day 7.5, day 8, day 9, day 9.5, day 10, day 10.5, day 11, day 11.5, day 12, day 12.5, day 13, day 13.5, day 14, day 15, day 16, day 16.5, day 17, day 18, day 19, day 19.5, day 20, day 20.5, day 21, day 22, day 22.5, day 23, day 23.5, day 24, day 24.5, day 25, day 25.5, day 26, day 26.5, day 27, day 27.5, day 28, day 28.5, day 29, day 29.5, day 30, day 30.5, day 31, day 31.5, day 32, day 32.5, day 33, day 33.5, day 34, day 34.5, day 35, and day 35.5!
After his relief, Captain Lee rose up, energized – it took a lot of energy to keep the pent-up, pent up, and that by itself is what kept his blood pressure high and with him in need of medicine to control it. But, the tension having been released, that freed up a great deal of energy. Rarely did the captain have these flashes, but they were coming more and more often, separate from him needing to perform some kind of mission.
A memory came back … of childhood in the Blue Ridge, in the summer, applying his mind to the making of the perfect paper plane. Paper had not been overly available, given that it was not often made in the mountains and his grandparents lived as much “off the grid” as possible. So: there were three things to consider: making the plane right, sheltering it while getting to just the right spot, and then letting that plane go in a thermal, in hot air rising from the valley below. The reward was watching a well-made plane float on the thermal until the sun went down. Extra reward: getting another piece of paper from Mama Linda, and a tip for another place to catch a good thermal from Papa Horace!
Part of Captain Lee's early command development was in helping his fellow mountain boys to focus on making planes and doing the hike to a place with a thermal instead of throwing them around and crashing them where they were made … the energy to get everything and everyone where they needed to be was the mission …but, oh, when for the first time the Blue Ridge Paper Air Force was in the air, that created plenty of energy that no longer had to be summoned up! All of them had plenty of energy just for joy – and relief, because “General Harry Lee” was no longer having to give orders to get the thing done!
Once, just once, Harry Lee and his fiancee Vanessa had made a bag full of paper planes and launched them into a thermal.
“That's gonna be us, once we get out of Virginia – we're gonna soar, Nessa, we are.”
They had, even if just for a little while … .
Energy for life, just to enjoy it – that had been gone for the 27 years since losing Mrs. Lee, but it was coming back, and Captain Lee was re-learning how to do things that gave him joy and relief and thus freed up that energy again. Since it was just 4:00, and he still had three hours before he was to be in Tinyville, he took his mandolin down to his car – for he had packed everything else already – and took off before rush hour, driving all the way down to Fruitland Memorial Park by 5:00.