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become one of the first airplane pilots in France.
    Well, what’s all this about, anyway? It’s about the power (and the price) of imagination. “Imagination is more important than information.” Einstein said that, and he should know.
    It’s also a story about how people of imagination stand on one another’s shoulders. From the ground to the balloon to the man in the balloon to the man on the moon. Yes. Some of us are ground crew—holding lines, building fires, dreaming dreams, letting go, and watching the upward flight. Others of us are bound for the sky and the far edges of things. That’s in the story, too.
    These things come to mind at the time of year when children graduate to the next stage of things. From high school, from college, from the nest of the parent. What shall we give them on these occasions? Imagination, a shove out and up, a blessing.
    “Come over here,” we say. “To the edge,” we say. “Let us show you something,” we say. “We are afraid,” they say. “It’s very exciting,” they say. “Come to the edge,” we say. “Use your imagination.”
    And they come. And they look. And we push. And they fly. We to stay and die in our beds. They to go and to die howsoever, yet inspiring those who come after them to find their own edge. And fly.
    These things come to mind, too, in the middle years of my own life. I, too, intend to live a long and useful life, and die safe in my bed on the ground. But the anniversary of that little event in the village of Annonay just happens to be my birthday. And on its bicentennial I went up in a balloon, from a field near the small Skagit Valley village of La Conner. Up, up, and away.
    It’s
never
too late to fly!

 
     
     

    L AUNDRY
    F OR A LONG TIME I was in charge of the laundry at our house. I liked my work. In an odd way it gave me a feeling of involvement with the rest of the family. It also gave me time alone in the back room, without the rest of the family, which was also nice, sometimes.
    I like sorting the clothes—lights, darks, and in-betweens. I like setting the dials—hot, cold, rinse, time, and heat. These are choices I can understand and make with decisive skill. I still haven’t figured out the new stereo, but washers and dryers I can handle. The bell dings—you pull out the warm, fluffy clothes, take them to the dining-room table, sort and fold them into neat piles. I especially like it when there’s lots of static electricity and you can hang socks all over your body and they will stick there.
    When I’m finished, I have a sense of accomplishment. A sense of competence. I am good at doing the laundry. At
least
that. And it’s a religious experience, you know. Water, earth, fire—polarities of wet and dry, hot and cold, dirty and clean. The great cycles—round and round—beginning and end—Alpha and Omega, amen. I am in touch with the GREAT SOMETHING-OR-OTHER. For a moment, at least, life is tidy and has meaning. But then, again . . .
    The washing machine died last week. Guess I overloaded it with towels. And the load got all lumped up on one side during the spin cycle. So it did this incredible herky-jerky lurching dance across the floor and blew itself up. I thought it was coming for me. One minute it was a living thing in the throes of a seizure, and the next minute a cold white box full of partially digested towels with froth around its mouth, because I guess I must have fed it too much soap, too. Five minutes later the dryer expired. Like a couple of elderly folks in a nursing home who follow one another quickly in death, so closely are they entwined.
    It was Saturday afternoon, and all the towels in the house were wet, and all my shorts and socks were wet, and now what? Knowing full well that if you want one of those repair guys you have to stay home for thirty-six hours straight and have your banker standing by with a certified check or else they won’t set foot on your property, and I haven’t got time for that.