Apologies to Tom Petty. I have discovered that we have a scanner. Actually we've had one for some time but since I just sent the draft off to a friend to read I'm playing with it. On to the photo that I am about to upload, Amelia on the roof of the library at Columbia University. I just absolutely love the idea of her sitting up there watching the world go by. What nerve she had. Also I've been reading some of her letters again, and there's such enthusiasm there, especially when she was young.
I wonder if she was fully conscious of this, or if it just is apparent to those of us interested in looking back at her. I think about being young, I see my own children and try to remember, through the fine mists of time, what it was like to be seventeen, or twenty two. I do remember this feeling of possibility. But also a great deal of confusion. I expect she was confused as well, she certainly changed career paths enough. But she also found a passion.
The thing I admired most about my father was his passion for the law. He knew he was meant to do one thing and one thing only. I felt and feel the same way about writing, whatever the drawbacks are. Amelia felt as strongly about flying, but god what a choice she made. What an incredible, wonderful choice.
Naomi this is a stunning photograph. Amelia is somehow both poised and impish as she sits perched on top of the town. I like the photo of Amelia with friends posted recently as well. It's wonderful to have passion infused into our activities. I can't say I haven't waffled about my career choice, but working in mental health I do have some passion to understand the root of our emotional pain, and its undoing.
ReplyDeleteYou surely need it. Thanks Colleen. I love looking at her. She was truly amazing, and amazingly beautiful.
ReplyDeleteAlso, that beautiful refrain "Amelia, it was just a false alarm" keeps coming back to me. A few days ago I googled "Why does Joni Mitchell sing "just a false alarm" in the Amelia song?" and nobody seems to know what this phrase refers to. Joni sings the words so softly with such depth of feeling, this is my take on what she's saying: She imagines Amelia alone in the sky when the plane runs out of gas or whatever it was that happened. Amelia is alone and about to disappear into the ocean. She feels alarmed. Joni says, "Don't worry, it's just a false alarm." This means that somehow things are okay even when we die in some inscrutable way...So it was just a false alarm.
ReplyDeleteThe first time I ever listened to the song oh-so-many years ago, I thought maybe the lyric meant that Amelia lives on in her legacy, of which there is plenty. So the physical death was just a false alarm. I dunno if this is what Joni intended, but I've never come up with a better theory.
ReplyDeleteA false alarm means that you don't have to be afraid, that you were wrong to assume that you were in danger. . . Amelia wasn't alone in the plane, though god knows what she felt when things started going wrong up there. She was with Fred Noonan, her navigator. They communicated via pulley, I believe Mkendrick knows more than I do on that subject really. It is such an evocative refrain. We have so many false alarms in life. I suppose when I think of it more I think how we spend so much time worrying over things that are false alarms, and not enough time realizing the grace and beauty of all that surrounds us.
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