Paper Planes

• Lori Palminteri
• Uncategorized
• January 19, 2024

Our purposeless lives are so fleeting, sometimes, I think of it like a paper plane. We’re this clean slate, and we’re folded and molded, for us lucky ones, by people who love us. And then you’re supposed to fly, gliding through the universe, some fragile thing.

I was never good at making paper planes. And, actually, when I think of someone who is, I think of my best friend, Jimmy. Precise and careful with the folds, and his eyes like a kid when it flew. A simple pleasure. Having fun.

Perhaps, then, our adventures, dreams, romances are just the same— paper planes that fly and then crumble, if they’re unable to land gracefully. Paper planes aren’t steered. Just thrown. And go! The same paper plane is only capable of so many flights.

You’re still young, some say. You’re not young anymore, says others. Neither are wrong. Neither are right. There are some days I feel, “what an extraordinary life.” And others I feel like I’ve drowned in my crumbled paper planes, hundreds of them. Thousands. Written pages of what? Stories. Fantasies. Fiction mixed with fact, or visa versa. So many crash landed paper planes.

It just takes time. I remind myself. And hard work. A luck. And money. And hope. And other people. And too many things not in your control. You are a paper plane. Flying through the universe without a cockpit. No yoke to decide where any of this is going.

As a paganistic worshipper of fun, are we not the divine? Our brief existence? Was it the fool in me, wanting to combine what I do for love, fun and money? Or is it the single trait that makes me most admirable? To those too practical or afraid? To those the wiser or without any wisdom at all?

If our mistakes build character and failures make us interesting, then color me a literary character, perhaps in someone else’s book rather than my own. Someone else’s paper plane. I can’t be hurt by it. Paper cuts sting, but not for long. Though I think, now, maybe the most honorable thing is to be the main character of someone else’s story. Like a mother with their unconditional love for their child, who’s world has been entirely replaced by another beating heart. A piece of paper not yet folded. Thrilled to see just how they will fly and where they will land.

Staying in the clouds is not possible for us. Is it a waste of life to keep trying to stay there? Or is it a waste of life not to? I’m a kid. Sitting on rock. Scribbling notes on a piece of paper. And throwing them into the sea. Maybe it will reach someone, like a note in a bottle. Floating beyond anywhere I can see or even imagine. Or maybe someone will join your side, and it won’t matter if your paper planes are ever found, you’ll just enjoy being on the seaside, laughing with someone, like kids skipping stones. Simple.

Like paper planes.