How Ghost School prepared me for weightlifting

Do you have a white sheet?

Yes.

Can you emit mysterious, spooky sounds?

Yes.

Can you fly?

Yes.

Mrs. Smith looked up from the

Ghost School applications.

“So, Miss Kathrin, you can fly?”

Everyone perked up.

“Yes. A little bit.”

“Let’s see you fly right now, then.”

They started to sense the joke.

“Well, I need like a running start,

and something to jump off of, like a tall chair.”

“I want to see you fly. Come on, fly around the room, right now.”

Everybody laughed.

…

When I got home, I asked Ma what “gullible” meant.

It meant no Ghost School.

. . .

But I knew the grip of space

in the instant I tipped off a chair,

or charged off a hill

and leapt –

into air –

nothing touching anything.

For that instant

before gravity called me down

I flew,

and I knew that with the right training,

like a Ghost School could give me,

I could hone this moment,

learn how to catch that pause,

turn up from that dip toward the ground

and keep flying –

a little farther,

a little farther,

until I could lift off the ground from nothing,

veer up and hover

at the ceiling

like I did in dreams.

. . .

I hoped Mrs. Smith was wrong

that somehow the Ghost School people

would pick up those forms from school

and call my parents,

and send for me,

and we could get the training going.

But Halloween passed, and I never

heard anything else about it.

. . .

For a while I walked

underwater in my dreams,

breathing just like I do on land.

That was worth sleeping, too,

but no match for flying.

The best were the rare times

when I knew I was dreaming, but I could still

do it,

and soared to the top of the room,

over their unsuspecting heads

and out into the sky.

. . .

. . .

I found that moment

again

30 years later

in my living room

when I jerked

my preacher bar,

copying the weightlifter animation

on the internet.

This was worth waking for.

. . .

Now I chase it

on the platform.

Rack it,

Dip,

Push –

I throw my feet apart,

and for an instant,

nothing touching anything,

I fly.

Photos: Sundown gate by me; Chip Conrad competing at Tommy Kono Open V by Allyson Goble