I'll Fly Away

I love my family in general and the children in particular, but between the brutal insomnia, the childcare, the SAT coaching and the being-away from my other, complete life back in Liberal College City/Awesome Part of the Country, I'll be glad to jump on that plane tomorrow.

It is weird to use a Baptist spiritual to say this, but somehow it works. I don't believe that earthly death leads to everlasting glory with Christ, but if I pull a Jefferson and strip all of the proselytizing and kind of basically secularize it, well then, it's a song about death and freedom. Heck, it could even be a Buddhist song, really, as it's about the letting go of the earthly, corporeal shackles to ascend to Nirvana. Except that I'm not really a Buddhist either, at least not anymore.

So if we really water it down, then let us say it is a song about the general, civil libertarian concept of "freedom." And if you had lived my life for the past two weeks, you too would be wanting to escape to a place in which your life/schedule is your own, and you answer to no one. Even if we get away from the idea of saving grace or enlightenment, then we can say we go from one life full of constraints to another life full of freedom. All my life I've felt that I've lived one life here, with my beloved family, and another elsewhere--whether it was in my head, or in a separate life I had at school and with other people. It's hard to explain.

In any case, I'm flying away, but going home, too. Or at least, from one home to another.