Encouragement and Approval from the Sky

(I'm still on my Blog Break, but felt the urge to share the following. Please don't feel the need to comment, because I'm still not reading other blogs, and that just wouldn't be fair.)

It doesn't seem possible that it was three months ago when I wrote the following poem. The weather was magically warm and I walked in wondrous thoughts and visions. That's when it began to sink in. The cosmic, overwhelming sense that now was the time to get serious about my writing. Now was the time to continue on with my memoir. Jump over those hurdles standing before me. And burst through anything or anyone (including myself) who got in my way.

Since that profound February day, I see and hear prop planes almost every single day. And the most Cosmic & ♫♪ Twilight Zoney ♫♪ thing about it is.....WHEN I see them. 

• When Vern and I are doing our daily walk. (at various times of day)
• When I just walk out onto our deck, with my pen and tablet in hand.
• When I'm driving, and all of a sudden one is flying over my car. 
• When I walk out to our mailbox. 
• When The Ronald and I are sitting on our deck, just talking and resting. 
• When I'm in a parking lot, walking into or out of a grocery store.

The point is: There is no particular time of day or night!!

It's become such a regular occurrence, it makes me smile and laugh every time. 

After looking up at the plane, and then further up into the sky, I said out loud: " I see it. I see it! I'm getting it! I'm getting it! Thanks! I'm getting it!"  ☺

That's me, during a visit to Parks Airport, 2009.

Now, just what do prop planes have to do with my memoir? The short version is this: I didn't really write until my *estranged father* became seriously ill and wasn't expected to live. My feelings about him poured out of me and were printed in a local newspaper (and later in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book). That's when I decided I was a writer and would write my memoir: From Pigtails to Chin Hairs: A Memoir & More

* (When I was a little girl, dad was a professor at a local aeronautical college. I've loved planes and everything to do with flying ever since. If you check my archives of dad, Parks Colleges, prop planes, etc. you can find out more.) *

So, there you have it. I'm getting help completing my book in what I'd call blissful and spiritual ways! 

Untitled               February 18, 2012


I strolled along the pavement,
the sound of quiet surrounding me
like a quilt. The stillness was deafening
until I heard the engine of a prop plane 
flying overhead. Stopping and shading my eyes,
I squint and watch it putter across
the powder blue sky.
Memories flooded my soul,
immediately tugging my mouth
into a wide grin.

The next day I walk the 
same path. A distant cardinal chirps,
most likely believing it's already spring.
Why shouldn't he?
These past few days have been nothing
but glorious.
Only the calendar page declares
it's just early February.
I turn, looking for his brilliant crimson color
among the vast bare branches
but my eyes cannot find him.

I notice the sky is full of "airplane smoke,"
those cloud-like wispy lines also 
carry memories for the child within me. 
I close my eyes, and for a moment
I'm standing motionless in my front yard again.
I stare up, marveling at the sight above,
taking it all in and thinking as profoundly as
a five-year-old possibly can.

Blinking, I become aware of 
my present surroundings and
begin my journey
back home.
Tomorrow. Maybe tomorrow 
I'll think back and 
reminisce once more.
Sentimental journeys.
Always bittersweet.

©2012 Becky Povich

"My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living." -- Anais Nin