Illuminated

How many paper airplanes must one make before the inner child is utterly raw from all the healing? Because humans are quite unlike trees in that the layers of skin below are not genesial tissue, but new cells, so that PHYSICALLY touching the child-you remains nearly impossible, that person having departed long ago.

I suppose the exception would be hair (and in bizarre cases, fingernails). I attended school with a redheaded girl whose mother, due to their brand of apostolic faith, never allowed her to cut her hair. It reached to her ankles, perhaps the loveliest sight you might ever have seen when released; the ends were there with her when she was a child. You could imagine a scientific technique for counting, like so many tree rings, lengths of that hair to determine her age; years of plenty where the color still shines vibrant, years of famine at thin points, perhaps barely perceptible brittleness if one were allowed to run his fingers through those years and those lengths and those Pentecostal strands.

Where to begin? Is what I would have asked had I been granted permission, but like so much of what endures beautiful in this world, she kept her hair tied up almost always. Nearly always.

The book, unfortunately, does not answer these questions directly, merely stating that one could potentially fold 100 planes from the paper inside.

I like this folding of paper, I've seen it enjoyed before, in other provinces. I like the repetition, though I hear the crispness of crumbling paper exhorted most often as the sugar cube motivation. I am enamored more of the routine, however. Yes, routine. Some people find it comforting.

But I will admit that following a weekend in perpetual fog, I feel like my path has been illuminated somewhat, although the path illuminated not one I can actually take. It's such a lovely vista, though, that I think I might follow it for a few steps, smell the air, maybe write a few words into one of these paper airplanes and let her fly. The world record aloft is less than 30 seconds. I can tarry at least that long.