The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 1

We were flying over the city we’d known our whole lives, but it was suddenly different.

Answer 1

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 2

We fought and frowned and made silent promises to never speak to each other ever again.

Answer 2

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 3

They dreamed a thing and made it happen.

Answer 3

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 4

That was the autumn our rooms felt too big and lonely with only us in them and darkness coming on so fast.

Answer 4

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 5

Lift you arms, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and stop being so mean about everything.

Answer 5

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 6

It was suddenly different.

Answer 6

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 7

But while we hugged ourselves against the too-quite of it all, we remembered

Answer 7

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 8

A street where the kids looked at us funny.

Answer 8

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 9

For a long time, the kids on the ground watched us…then one by one they lifted their arms.

Answer 9

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 10

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.

Answer 10

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 11

Use those beautiful and brilliant minds of yours, my grandmother said.

Answer 11

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 12

Lift you arms, close your eyes, take a deep breath, and believe in a thing.

Answer 12

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 13

Somebody somewhere at some point was just as bored as you are now.

Answer 13

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 14

So my brother and I closed our eyes.

Answer 14

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 15

And for a few minutes that first day, we weren’t stuck in our apartment anymore.

Answer 15

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 16

Exploding with every kind of flower we’d ever dreamed of growing.

Answer 16

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 17

Somebody somewhere at some point was just as mad as you are now.

Answer 17

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 18

So we did.

Answer 18

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 19

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.

Answer 19

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 20

But while we hugged ourselves against the too quiet of it all, we remembered that we didn’t have to be stuck anywhere anymore.

Answer 20

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 21

My grandmother had learned to fly from the people who came before.

Answer 21

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 22

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.

Answer 22

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 23

So our people learned to fly, she said.

Answer 23

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 24

Closed their eyes and flew away home.

Answer 24

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 25

Lift your arms, my grandmother said, close your eyes, and remember somebody somewhere at some point had to figure out they could fly.

Answer 25

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 26

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.

Answer 26

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 27

Its okay, I said to my brother.

Answer 27

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 28

Somebody somewhere at some point had to figure out they were ready for any new thing coming their way.

Answer 28

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 29

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.

Answer 29

The Year We Learned to Fly

Question 30

Not with wings, but with words

Answer 30

The year we learned to fly

Question 31

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.

Answer 31

The year we learned to fly

Question 32

As a kid, I always wondered how people were able to survive through the horrors of enslavement.

Answer 32

The year we learned to fly

Question 33

But they did.

Answer 33

The year we learned to fly

Question 34

And they passed down their stories and their fables and their memories to the young people coming along after them.

Answer 34

The year we learned to fly

Question 35

And these stories gave us wings.

Answer 35

The year we learned to fly

Question 36

Sometimes the first step toward change is closing our eyes, taking a breath, and imagining a different way.

Answer 36

The year we learned to fly

Question 37

And before they know it, their imaginations lift them up and out of their boredom.

Answer 37

The year we learned to fly

Question 38

Then, on a day full of quarrels, they follow Grandmother;s advice and find they’re able to leave their anger behind.

Answer 38

The year we learned to fly

Question 39

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.

Answer 39

The year we learned to fly