Inside from the Inside

In fact, I know we can fly because I have done it myself.

Since the age of seven, when I discovered angular bones jutting from my back— “scapula” my mother called them—I knew I would fly someday. My “wing buds,” as I called them, would sprout big white wings and I would be a flying performer. The plan was to soar and dive under the spotlight inside grand theaters thrilling audiences everywhere.

The career did not go as planned.

I did learn to fly however.

I learned when I stepped onto the huge wooden floor at the local cinder-block roller rink under the mirrored ball in small-town Kansas on steamy Friday nights.

Roller-skating was the most intensely passionate experience I’d ever had. It wasn’t just the thrill of grasping the damp hand of some boy who invited me for the couples-only skate. It wasn’t only the pulsing thrust of the organ as it wailed along with Elvis. It was the flying—the spinning, the long, sensuous strides, arms thrown open, heart bursting with song, leaning against gravity at every turn, speeding backwards into the void, tasting the pleasure of whole-hearted joy. When I was flying, there was no mere rink. It was a place transformed, where angels flew with hair streaking back against the speed.

Then life intervened and I forgot I could fly.

I moved away and for many years I didn’t put on skates. I grew stiff and rusty.

One day, a walk on the bike path at a nearby forest preserve convinced me to buy a pair of roller blades, and for three summers I lurched up and down hills through the forest on skates. For three years I jerked along like Frankenstein’s monster, covered with plastic pads on knees and elbows, wrist supports at the ready for the big fall, head helmeted. I was so awkward that people passing by gave me the thumbs up of encouragement, yelling “you’ll get the hang of it,” thinking it was my first day on skates even after I’d been rollerblading for months. I assumed this was a good as it was ever going to be, but I just kept doing it.

Then my eight-year-old daughter and I moved into the heart of the big city of Chicago into an empty loft-like second floor apartment and in our new neighborhood there was a roller-skating rink: The Rainbow. Eager to share the experience of real skating with my daughter, we went to the rink together. I put on my roller blades, resigned to being the overweight, middle-aged maladroit I’d become. But something magical happened when I stepped onto the boards.

I became a child again. I could fly.

Under the mirrored ball, on the vast wooden floor I could swoop and soar. I could strut and sway and weave my way. But it wasn’t like the old days back in Kansas. Elvis was no longer king and the organ played no more. But I didn’t miss them. Here I was skating with black people mostly, but everyone really, a rainbow of people, and we were all flying together. We were a graceful flock of swallows, all soaring one way, then the other — stepping in unison, arms entwined — lifted together by the music and singing our hearts out.

Flying was our prayer, our joyous celebration and our hope for the future.

Now I’d like to invite you to fly with us.  Just listen and I promise you will soar. Flying starts here:

Music and lyrics by R. Kelly

Tags: dancing, flying, inspiration, integration, Music, R._Kelly, Race, rainbow, roller-blading, roller-skating, skating, Yolanda_Adams