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I took a flying lesson on my 33rd birthday, instead of calling you Or parking on the block where our old place used to be Genesee, genesee, genesee Pathetic, I know - but sometimes I still like to park on that street, And have lunch in the car just to feel close to you I was once in love with my life here, In that studio apartment with you Little yellow flowers on the tops of trees as our only view, Out of the only window, Big enough for me to see our future through But it turned out I was the only one who could see it Stupid apartment complex Terrible you You, who I wait for You, you, you Like a broken record stuck on loop So that day, on my birthday, I thought "Something has to change" You can’t always be about waiting for you Don’t tell anyone, but part of my reasoning for taking the flight class, was this idea that if I could become my own navigator SongtexteThe captain of the sky, That perhaps I could stop looking for direction from you Well, what started off as an idea on a whim, Has turned into something more Too shy to explain to the owners that my first lesson was just a one-time thing I’ve continued to go to classes each week At the precious little strip off Santa Monica and Bundy And everything was going fine We were starting with dips and loops and then something terrible happened During my fourth lesson in the sky My instructor, younger than I, but as tough as you Instructed me to do a simple maneuverer It’s not that I didn’t do it, But I was slow to lean the sports cruiser into a right hand upward turn Scared, scared that I would lose control of the plane Not tactfully and not gently The instructor shook his head, and without looking at me said “You don’t trust yourself” I was horrified Feeling as though I’d somehow been found out Like he knew me How weak I was Of course, he was only talking about my ability as a pilot in the sky But I knew it was meant for me to hear those words For me, they held a deeper meaning I didn’t trust myself Not just 25,000 feet above the coast of Malibu But with anything And I didn’t trust you I could’ve said something but I was quiet Because pilots aren’t like poets They don’t make metaphors between life and the sky In the midst of this mid-life, meltdown, navigational exercise in self-examination, I also decided to do something else I always wanted to do Take sailing lessons in the vibrant bay of Marina del Ray I signed up for the class as "Elizabeth Grant", And nobody blinked an eye So, why was I so sure that when I walked into the tiny shack on Valley Way, someone would say “You’re not a captain of a ship, or a master of the sky!” No, the fisherman didn’t care, and so neither did I And for a brief moment, I felt more myself than ever before Letting the self proclaimed drunkard captain’s lessons wash over me like the foamy tops of the sea Midway through my forehead burned, and my hands raw from driving The captain told me the most important thing I’d need to know on the sea “Never run the ship into irons” That’s nautical terms for not sailing the boat directly into the wind In order to do that though, you have to know where the wind is coming from And you might not have time to look up to the mast, Or up further to the weathervane So you have to feel where the wind is coming from On your cheeks, and by the tips of the white waves from which direction they’re rolling To do this, he gave me an exercise He told me to close my eyes, and asked me to feel on my neck which way the wind was blowing I already knew I was going to get it wrong “The wind is coming from everywhere, I feel it all over” I told him “No”, he said “the wind is coming from the left. The portside” I sat waiting for him to tell me “You don’t trust yourself” But he didn’t, so I said it for him “I don’t trust myself” He laughed gentler than the pilot, but still not realising that my failure in the exercise was hitting me at a much deeper lever “It’s not that you don’t trust yourself” he said. “it’s simply that you’re not a captain. It isn’t what you do” Then he told me he wanted me to practise everyday so I would get better “Which grocery store do you go to?” he asked “To the Ralphs in the Palisades” I replied “Okay. When you’re in the Ralphs in the Palisades, I want you, as you're walking from your car to the store, To close your eyes, and feel which way the wind is blowing Now, I don’t want you to look like a crazy person crouching in the middle of the parking lot, but everywhere you go, I want you to try and find which way the wind is coming in from And then, determine if it’s from the port or starboard side, So when you’re back on the boat you have a better sense of it” I thought his advice was adorable I could already picture myself in the parking lot, Squinting my eyes with perfect housewives looking on I could picture myself growing a better sense of which way the wind was blowing And as I did, a tiny bit of deeper trust also began to grow within myself I thought of mentioning it, but I didn’t Because captain’s aren’t like poets They don’t make metaphors between sea and sky And as I thought that to myself, I realized that’s why I write All this circumnavigating the earth, Was to get back to my life Six trips to the moon for my poetry to arise I’m not a captain, I’m not a pilot I write! I write Aus Songtexte Mania