Delight Springs

Thursday, July 18, 2013

Happy flight

Took the long route to my writing porch this morning, via the airport. Put Older Daughter on a very symbolic solo flight, for a visit with friends in Gotham. She's thinking of it as her transitional flight from childhood, with college move-in day just around the corner. "She's leaving home after living alone for so many years... bye-bye..."

But I'm trying not to think of it that way, yet. Better save the sentiment for next month, when I'll really need it.

So she's in the air as I write, and will shortly be a walker in the city like Alfred Kazin. Kazin wrote, rightly,

The writer writes in order to teach himself, to understand himself, to satisfy himself; the publishing of his ideas, though it brings gratification, is a curious anticlimax.

And,
One writes to make a home for oneself, on paper, in time and in others' minds. 
She won't be a solitary walker like J-J Rousseau, though I wish her many urban reveries beyond the freeborn people in chains she'll see on the streets, inevitably, when she looks around there. He wondered,
Why should we build our happiness on the opinions of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?
Good question. As Dumbledore said, we must simply remember to switch on that inner light.

Kazin and Rousseau each gets a nod in PW, so I must go now and do my rambling research.

Bite the Big Apple, Older Daughter, but remember that Thomas Wolfe was wrong. See you next week. Happy flight.
==
Postscript. She landed safely, ate a "real" bagel, and sent back pics of Freedom Tower and Belvedere Castle...

 
Brooklyn Heights Promenade, Friday night: 



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