Anticipation

Expecting to Fly

Our hearts aflutter with hope

There you stood on the edge of your feather Expecting to fly While I laughed, I wondered whether I could wave goodbye Knowin’ that you’d gone

My treadmill and stationary bike are placed in front of one of our two TVs in our huge finished basement, where I spend a goodly part of my day as my office is situated here, as well. Essentially, I’ve become a mole.

I’m always looking for something new to watch while I work out. Nothing too taxing cerebrally, just some light viewing to help alleviate the boredom of running, squatting, pedaling, and lifting.

Lately, I’ve been hooked on music documentaries. Somehow, I find them soothing. So far, I’ve plowed through Led Zeppelin, Stevie Nicks, Janice Joplin, Monterey Pop, yeah, nostalgia time.

Currently, I’m watching the Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young story. Fascinating stuff with a haunting soundtrack that brings to mind, for those of us who lived it, a more innocent time. I’m at the juncture where Neil Young‘s’ constant clashes with Stephen Stills brought that collaboration to a swift and ugly end.

Before CSNY, there was the folk-rocky Buffalo Springfield. Stills and Young were members of that band, as well. Younger readers here will probably have no idea what I’m talking about but I’m certain many others of you, will.

One of their most ethereal numbers, “Expecting to Fly” has always hit me where I live because that’s how I think of myself. Constantly poised…for something I can’t adequately articulate. But poised I am. And when I listen to the tune, I actually feel it deep down in my gut, it’s that visceral. It drifts in on a feather, with strings crescendoing in the background, and then leaves you wanting more.

“Expecting” received a huge boost in the anti-Vietnam-war drama, Coming Home, starring Jane Fonda and Jon Voight. It played as a backdrop to the tender and sensual first love scene between Fonda’s married, soon to be enlightened housewife character and Voight, an angry vet, who is a quadriplegic due to the injuries he sustained in Nam. It is arguably one of the sexiest scenes in filmdom.

I’ve never forgotten that song as I’ve always felt like the girl who was “standing on the edge of a feather, waiting to fly.” All my life, I’ve been waiting for something that I can’t put my finger on. That probably sounds crazy, but it’s akin to an unsated hunger, that eats away at your insides while you scrabble to find that perfect bite that will quell the pain. Fill you up.

And I know you writers feel this. We’re all expecting to fly.

But what are we hungering for? Success, either creative, monetary, or both? The conviction that we took the right path in life? Adulation from our peers? Or merely, inner peace? That in itself is no small thing and perhaps the toughest to attain of all.

Sometimes that pain recedes, but when it comes back, it returns with a vengeance. Am I right?

As I watched the documentary and listened to the song once again, it struck me that, as writers, so many of us are “expecting to fly.” Waiting. Poised to take off to imagined scenarios wild and wonderful.

Waiting and hoping for the validation we seek, for what we do and who we are as writers. For that Big Break that will make all our hard work, worthwhile.

By turns, we writers are fragile and steely. Expecting to be rejected and hoping like hell we’re not. Poised, trembling, to take whatever comes, whether it be a nasty comment, a drop in stats, or a capricious muse that comes and goes at will. (And mine can be a real bitch, let me tell you.)

But we love what we do. We fucking love it.

Some of us crack under all that self-imposed pressure while others thrive on it. In the latter category, I always feel as if I’m in a race with myself. That’s a peculiar feeling. Am I my own worst enemy or my besty? It changes by the day, in accordance with my mood.

I’ve learned from several friends here and from my own experience, that we writers are also crazy-good at beating ourselves up. To excess, sometimes. What we must remember: It’s impossible to fly with broken wings. So we need to be kinder to ourselves. More accepting of our screw-ups when they occur, and they will.

But then come those moments when we feel like we could soar above the Himalayas. Someone said something nice about a story. They clapped. They commented. They get us.

Or, after a long dry spell, one of our stories is curated. Score! Now, we really feel good. We’re having a Sally Field-at-the-Oscars-moment.

They like us, damn it! They really, really like us!

Uh…no. We probably got lucky. But so what. We’ll take it.

As I write this, my brain is flip-flopping back and forth, making it difficult for my fingers to catch up with my thoughts. This happens quite frequently when I write. I think one way, and then another. I contradict my own ass.

And too, there is something in the air, today. Something kind of good, actually, even though we’re in the middle of a pandemic and the weather here in the Chicago area is dark and drizzly, which I like. (I can do dark and drizzly.)

Perhaps what I’m feeling is expectant. And I’m beginning to realize that this feeling, this waiting for that elusive something, isn’t such a bad deal. I mean, who wouldn’t want to wake up every morning with the niggling thought that “Today, something great could happen?” There’s enough doom and gloom to go around. We’ve hung tough for so long and it’s time to break with the program.

So why not stand on the edge of that feather? Why not feel expectant? Recently, I’ve come to believe that for me, my feather just might be this publication. I don’t know why but something feels different, here. And I’m digging it. I’m feeling that good things could happen for myself and for other writers on this platform, because of it.

Perhaps I’m just being a romantic. I know. Normally not my style, but I have my softer side. It may be tucked away most days but it’s there, amid the crust and grit.

So yes, I’m poised and waiting. Expecting to soar. Would you like to join me? No reason to fly solo.

Sherry McGuinn is a slightly-twisted, longtime Chicago-area writer and award-winning screenwriter. Her work has appeared in The Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun-Times, and numerous other publications. Sherry’s manager is currently pitching her newest screenplay, a drama with dark, comedic overtones and inspired by a true story.

Thanks so much for reading, guys. If you enjoyed this, and are up for more: