The Yahoo Kid and e.e. cummings' Birthday

About a couple weeks ago I rode eight airplanes (including connections) in the span of about eight days. Amongst many other things, it was an opportunity to do a lot of people-watching. In my mid thirties now, I remember being fearless and age 18 or 19 years old, also being 10 or 12 and playing so hard everyday outside. Running in from the yard and drinking 4 glasses of water in four seconds, dying of thirst, water running down my chin.

But that was then and this is now. So, I recently realized that in some ways I am definitely not like that (fully enthusiastic) anymore, which is both good and bad probably for a lot of different reasons.

On one of these airplane rides a couple weeks ago, the plane began rolling forward on the runway to take off. As the rush of the wind got louder and louder and the anticipation of liftoff sets into my stomach, the tension builds. We go faster and faster and I was praying I think, not to have this be my last moment on earth, or something like that; - a kind of over-worrying, fear-driven reaction I guess.

Before this though, I was sitting in my seat waiting and a young kid - a boy about five or six maybe was boarding the plane with his grandmother. Maybe it was his mom I couldn't really tell, but I could definitely hear them. The boy was very excited, very loud, and had a question or statement or noise every other second it seemed like. Somehow he had twisted one of the knobs above him to make a really weird squished-whistling-air kind of noise, and he lost control laughing really loud. He thought it was the funniest thing ever. He was also telling really simple jokes then losing it every time laughing again. The kind of thing that might drive you nuts if you're on the plane, but also makes you realize the joy and exubarance of youth.

So right in this exact moment when the plane left the ground and I was kind of wincing and praying, this child in full, uninhibited, completely free-release, as loud as he could yelled, "yyyyyyyyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhooooooooooooooooooooooooo" and all in one moment I was ashamed of my own fear, yearned for the freedom and innocence of youth, forgave that kid in my mind for being so loud the past 30 minutes, and was for a moment transported to my own childhood state of mind. To quote one of my favorite bands Phish, it's that feeling of like, "running like an antelope, out of control". So here is to that kid for enjoying life so much.

P.S.

Today is also E.E. cummings birthday. I was dismayed to find out recently researching the man, that he started out as a liberal but eventually joined the ranks of the 'patriotic' movement that happened as a result of the influence of Joseph McCarthy. 

Oh well, just another reminder that sometimes it's better to leave politics out of art (but sometimes political art can be powerful obviously, but in this case the art had nothing to do with the politics). That being said, Cummings was one of my first favorite poets that I really liked, and influenced my creative process with his complete release of traditional poetry and grammar 'rules'. (It made more sense to me that poems and art should start out with no rules, than to be made based on existing ones, a mode of thinking that could not of existed without pioneers like Cummings). 

The freedom in the style of his poetry really gave his work a powerful edge in my young mind. The way my brain processed the words - based on his presentation of them, and because of the way he used words in untraditional ways in relation to each other,  gave his work more feeling than I had experienced in any other poetry.  This was a big influence on my own style. Here is one of my favorite poems from him.

Into the strenuous briefness         e.e. cummings


into the strenuous briefness
Life:
handorgans and April
darkness, friends

i charge laughing.
Into the hair-thin tints
of yellow dawn,
into the women-coloured twilight

i smilingly glide. I
into the big vermilion departure
swim, sayingly;

(Do you think?) the
i do, world
is probably made
of roses & hello:

(of solongs and, ashes)