The Day I Learned To Fly

It occurred to me that the windmill in our backyard would always remind us of summer; it was squeaky and never seemed to stop spinning. Little did I know at that time, but this day would change everything for me.

I yelled, “Mama, look! The windmill is going so fast!” breaking the silence that had fallen upon the drowsy afternoon.

Mama was in the kitchen, perhaps lost in some old tune on the radio. She didn’t reply immediately, so I padded over to her, my bare feet brushing against the wooden floor. At just eight years old, I saw the world through eyes that found wonder in little things, things that often felt like the greatest happenings. The windmill was one of them.

"Not now, sweetheart," she replied, not even turning around, her hands busy with something that involved flour and eggs. “It’s just the wind, making it go.”

I turned again and walked out, the door screen banged behind me, and then I was standing there. The wind mill felt to me as if it was a giant and that I was one of those small creatures crawling on earth’s surface.

I had this sudden thought—what if I could spin like that? What if I could feel the wind pushing me, lifting me? So, my arms went wide open and I started turning round and round very slowly just to test whether the air would catch me.

"Muna! What are you doing?" My brother’s voice broke through my thoughts, bringing me back to earth.

Joseph had just recently become twelve years old and he appeared to be more knowledgeable about things than I did. He came up beside me with eyes that were filled with curiosity which also contained another emotion besides it- worry.

"I’m trying to fly," I said, still twirling, not wanting to stop. I wanted to show him what I’d discovered, that feeling of almost being lifted off the ground. "Look, Joseph! I think I’m really doing it!"

He frowned at me and put his hands in his pockets, as though he was wondering whether I was serious or playing some kind of game. “Muna, you can’t fly. People don’t fly.”

“If birds do it, why couldn’t we? Maybe we just don’t put in enough effort,” I said, breathless but still caught in the thrill of it.

Joseph sighed—a deep, tired sigh that seemed to come from the burden of being older and having to explain things to me. He instead picked up a stick from the floor and used it to draw circles within circles on the ground just like a map.

“Look at this,” he said after some time while pointing towards the circles. “We are here. The reason why we stay on earth is because it’s our nature. This means that wind and birds are up there,” he drew a line spiraling away from the circles to indicate this fact. “They move anywhere they want since that is how they were programmed to function but Muna, we are different.”

“That’s not fair,” I said as I kicked the soil watching my toes erase his careful lines from view. "Even I would go up there too just to find out what it’s like.”

There was something about Joseph’s gaze then – something precise – that made me think for a moment that he might see eye-to-eye with me on this one. But instead all he did was shake his head and walk back into the house leaving me behind with my windmill and dreams.

So I tried again. I spun and spun, my feet barely grazing the ground, my heart pounding in my chest. I knew it wasn’t real, that I wasn’t actually flying, but in that moment, it didn’t matter. The wind caught me, held me, and for just a second, I was weightless.

She must have been near all along because she suddenly appeared next to me; holding my shoulders lightly so as not to allow vertigo take over me while saying: “Muna stop you will make yourself dizzy.”

I looked up at her with eyes spinning and heart racing. “Mama,” I murmured with hopes that she would understand.

But she didn’t. She just smiled that soft, sad smile grown-ups have when they know something you don’t. "You were playing, sweetheart. But you can’t fly. No one can."

The words didn't come out. And maybe they never would have come out because deep inside me i think she might be right… but i couldn't accept this idea; there’s a bit of something within me refusing it - a small part finding solace in the magic of the cold air surrounding us.

That night, while I was in bed, the windmill kept on creaking from outside. I shut my eyes and let it take me away into sleep where I dreamt of spinning higher and higher till I couldn’t see the ground but could fly free with the wind.

But then again, inside of me deeply I had vowed that no matter what it would take me never to give up: who knows, perhaps one day I will find out how to fly in reality.