Hello from across the room

I made you a paper airplane when we were in second grade. I wrote, "I love you," in the middle of the white page, using a yellow crayon. Back then the only shade of yellow we had was just that, yellow. I made the airplane using all the skill I could muster, but I was never any good with my hands or fine motor skills, so I botched the job. It was the first, or so it seems, though it must already have been the thousandth, of jobs I'd botch in my lifetime. But that's a story for another day.

I'd been in love with you for at least a week, maybe even two. It's hard to remember because time goes like the wings of a hummingbird when you're in love. Once, I'd seen you on the playground playing four square and your face was flushed with exertion. It was a Tuesday, and perhaps that's the day that I fell in love. Though it could have been a Wednesday. I lose track of these sorts of things. 

I made the airplane that afternoon during recess, and I looked at you from across the room. You were looking at your pencil, forming perfect o's with the kind of care that characterized all of your work. Who couldn't love such a diligent worker? The plane's wings were uneven, but I thought or knew that it would soar across the room, past the blackboard and over the wooden desks to land perfectly on your desk. 

I couldn't imagine, truth be told, a life where the plane didn't soar across that space and unite the two of us in love. I waited until the teacher had turned back towards the board. She was showing us the letter q, making certain that we formed the tail with a slight mark out to the right. All of her attention was focused, laser-like on the board. I remember her dark helmet of hair, rigidly cut off at the shoulders. And then I threw it.

The plane flew across the room like a thousand ships sailing across the seas. And then the shoddy job I'd done on the wings came into play and the plane spiraled, falling like a mallard from Duck Hunt towards the ground, where it alighted right on the desk of another girl, who's name I barely knew. She hesitated for a moment, looking shyly at me, her cheeks turning scarlet and then she opened the letter.

Sometimes things don't work out quite as you planned. And sometimes they do. She and I have been together now these forty years, all because of those faulty wings, that doomed flight.