The Year We Learned to Fly Flashcards
We were flying over the city we’d known our whole lives, but it was suddenly different.
The Year We Learned to Fly
We fought and frowned and made silent promises to never speak to each other ever again.
The Year We Learned to Fly
They dreamed a thing and made it happen.
The Year We Learned to Fly
That was the autumn our rooms felt too big and lonely with only us in them and darkness coming on so fast.
The Year We Learned to Fly
Lift you arms, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and stop being so mean about everything.
The Year We Learned to Fly
It was suddenly different.
The Year We Learned to Fly
But while we hugged ourselves against the too-quite of it all, we remembered
The Year We Learned to Fly
A street where the kids looked at us funny.
The Year We Learned to Fly
For a long time, the kids on the ground watched us…then one by one they lifted their arms.
The Year We Learned to Fly
That was the spring when the rain seemed like it would never stop and thunder boomed so hard, we weren’t allowed to go outside.
The Year We Learned to Fly
Use those beautiful and brilliant minds of yours, my grandmother said.
The Year We Learned to Fly
Lift you arms, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and believe in a thing.
The Year We Learned to Fly
Somebody somewhere at some point was just as bored as you are now.
The Year We Learned to Fly
So my brother and I closed our eyes.
The Year We Learned to Fly
And for a few minutes that first day, we weren’t stuck in our apartment anymore.
The Year We Learned to Fly
Exploding with every kind of flower we’d ever dreamed of growing.
The Year We Learned to Fly
Somebody somewhere at some point was just as mad as you are now.
The Year We Learned to Fly
So we did.
The Year We Learned to Fly
And as the soft wind took us out over the city and past the windows of kids who hadn’t yet learned to fly, my brother and I reached for each other’s hand, flying and diving and laughing, and leaving all of our mad far behind us.
The Year We Learned to Fly
But while we hugged ourselves against the too quiet of it all, we remembered that we didn’t have to be stuck anywhere anymore.
The Year We Learned to Fly
My grandmother had learned to fly from the people who came before.
The Year We Learned to Fly
They were aunts and uncles and cousins who were brought here on huge ships, their wrists and ankles cuffed in iron, but, my grandmother said, nobody can ever cuff your beautiful and brilliant mind.
The Year We Learned to Fly
So our people learned to fly, she said.
The Year We Learned to Fly
Closed their eyes and flew away home.
The Year We Learned to Fly
Lift your arms, my grandmother said, close your eyes, and remember somebody somewhere at some point had to figure out they could fly.
The Year We Learned to Fly
That was the winter we moved away from the building and the block and the friends we’d always known to a street where the kids looked at us funny and didn’t even answer when we asked them if they wanted to play.
The Year We Learned to Fly
Its okay, I said to my brother.
The Year We Learned to Fly
Somebody somewhere at some point had to figure out they were ready for any new thing coming their way.
The Year We Learned to Fly
So like the people who came before us, we lifted our arms even higher, closed our eyes even tighter, breathed in even deeper, and flew the way we’d always known how to - free as the aunties and uncles and cousins who’d come before us, free as our own beautiful and brilliant minds.
The Year We Learned to Fly
Not with wings, but with words
The year we learned to fly
Her book is the story of how enslaved people escaped their hard lives by lifting up and flying away home, and every page is anointed with the illustrious paintings of Leo and Dianne Dillon.
The year we learned to fly
As a kid, I always wondered how people were able to survive through the horrors of enslavement.
The year we learned to fly
But they did.
The year we learned to fly
And they passed down their stories and their fables and their memories to the young people coming along after them.
The year we learned to fly
And these stories gave us wings.
The year we learned to fly
Sometimes the first step toward change is closing our eyes, taking a breath, and imagining a different way.
The year we learned to fly
And before they know it, their imaginations lift them up and out of their boredom.
The year we learned to fly
Then, on a day full of quarrels, they follow Grandmother;s advice and find they’re able to leave their anger behind.
The year we learned to fly
This precious skill, their grandmother tells them, harkens back to days long before they were born, when their ancestors showed the world the strength and resilience of their beautiful and brilliant minds.
The year we learned to fly
