amelia myself and i

[wytchcroft]

I have mentioned elsewhere my burgeoning interest in Amelia Earhart (and, I should add now, many other early flyers all of them idiosyncratic and intriguing) –

in the intervening time I’ve been richly rewarded in the process of research as a very great amount of material has been published, archives are now available online, books and documentaries have proliferated and at least one biopic movie has been made.
 


As a scribbler, it’s hard not to respond creatively somehow, the desire to evoke a period, to celebrate the achievements of so charismatic a personality and, ultimately, to want to solve the enigma of her final flight and disappearance becomes stronger as more details and more mysteries are uncovered.





I am under no illusion of being able to really do justice to the reality of Earhart as a person (and associated figures such as the oft maligned navigator Noonan) or to the surreal exuberance of semi-crazed events such as the ‘powder-puff derby’ which pitted the few female pilots of the time against one another as they navigated across America with roadmaps or fell out of the sky due to the ungodly amount of sabotage, sand in the gas tanks for example, wacky races got nothing to compare!

But the pull of gravity is indeed strong – thus the few associatively linked ‘island pieces’ that I’ve posted here all have some connection to Earhart as a muse figure. I will cheerfully admit to a fairly low opinion of my (gawd) literary (!) efforts but perhaps that’s the root of my fascination with Amelia; she herself held modest views of her piloting skills – she just didn’t let that stop her. A genuine punk in that regard, she would flash a grin, screw up her eyes, hunch down her shoulders and nervously slam her beloved plane against the runway or against the sky. Everyone posting here on the web must feel a similar mix of exhilaration and fear.





As a woman, Amelia’s pre-feminist breakthroughs are well known and justly regarded. But she was not entirely alone. Indeed there was a strong rivalry (which could on occasion become bitter) between the Aviatrixes of the time – women, as ever, being encouraged to compete with one another for the attention of and possible recognition from men.





That there was not MORE of this, and that in fact the women were frequently strongly supportive of one another and genuinely friendly, is a testament to their characters and the shared hunger for advancement.

But all the same – what of the women who were NOT Amelia Earhart?

I want now to know of them, to know how it must have felt to be simultaneously inspired and frustrated by the flyers exploits and reputation.

Women from all walks of life not only pilots.

How would someone like Earhart impact on their personal sense of identity and achievement in life?


So... I have been working away at something, a project (finally! after a year of not really writing,) a drama piece...of which more later. The improvised fragments so far posted (and arising from different sessions, some with music and f/x) are just first approaches, aerial reconnaissance, testing the petrol, I want to get the ‘poetry’ out of my system before starting out because... well, just because - and I need to make certain that my eager little Vega** does not simply gad about the same path already gracefully flown by others.


There is another layer too – all this zooming back into the past has revealed it to me. Back in the 1980’s I cranked out a performance piece called ‘Flight’ about the connection between the mother and child during birth. That piece resulted in definite and significant changes in my life.

Just recently I have been amongst expectant and new mothers and been inspired by them (hello to my real life Muses out there) to write, or retrieve, pieces exploring notions and experiences of birthing and new life (both light and dark) – which has fed into the Amelia work, in effect becoming another ‘Flight’, and I am only now realising this, tracing a necessary circle before heading out for the horizon...

 




So, this is the process underway, attempting to find the points of navigation, to adjust the engine and order in the best fuel possible, to compare maps and markers before striking out. I don’t normally post the process work (I know, I know it’s ALL Process Work, ok, ok) but that in itself represents a new direction for me.

Maybe I’ll falter, maybe I’ll stop, and all this scribbling will result in nothing more than an embarrassing ground-loop...

we’ll see.






*i am an uncommitted believer in the Gardener Island scenario for those who know the topic. And there is a weird poetry in many of the radio signals picked up after the non-arrival at Howland, genuine or not.



** or Electra.