I Will Fly

How can I not be vocal

in this challenging year

This challenge is all about

the challenges right here

and now for so many

untouched not any

high flyers all but grounded

boneyards filled with wings

with no uplift

and little prospect

for all their people downwind

waiting to turn back

into the wind

to return to the skies

...

Not just me but many

can Bequest good deeds

where going once again

equates to giving

one good deed is indeed good

but better by far so many...

I wonder if a real-time unfolding story can make the cut in this challenge. At this moment I have no reactions, no responses, no takers, no followers  - zero, zip, zilch and whatever means nothing in your local lingo. How will this entry end?

We are now, in Australia, once more being seen as the Lucky Country - but it was tough luck that got us to this enviable place - quite free once again (yet here the perils of procrastination can turn the tables: we have another cluster and State borders are coming up again - chaos and pain are only a few positive cases away at any time).

When the Pandemic was declared, and in Australia the (plague) ships came in, and the virus escaped into the wider population - history was in the making, but not in a good way.

National broadcasts from our Prime Minister, in blow after blow, shut down whole industries and sectors of the economy. Nothing novel here.

Livelihoods were trashed overnight and the latest headlines were about how many employees were being layed off in this industry and that. Most memorable to me was the laying off of 30,000 airline employees, after a 90 percent drop in domestic flights, and then all international flights ended too.

While the government was forced, like all around the world, to borrow massive amounts of money for income support for their populations, the impact on those grounded and stood down employees was all across the news (along with so many, many more - all around the world).

I particularly remember two stories about pilots - one here in my hometown of Brisbane - working in a kitchen, and one in a supermarket packing shelves. There is of course nothing wrong or demeaning about these jobs, but the loss of skills is self-evident.

Helplessness and insecurity were early symptoms of the pandemic. This was the challenge of the times: how to keep hope alive, to come out on the other side. How could I, as one person, help in some small ways: the numbers were - and still are - overwhelming.

I thinkwalk: I do my best thinking, creating and composing (writing) while out walking. I usually find a seat and capture my thoughts on paper or on the iPad, or record on the move. One of my first reactions to the pandemic was this image: note the overwhelm. I wouldn’t change this early reaction, I would only add that it will have more longevity than anyone would care to entertain in their thinking.

On another walk, I sat down by the Brisbane River to capture a concept that was coalescing in my mind, a concept that was to evolve into a project entitled I Will Fly. There’s a convoluted side story, that also includes creatives impacted by the Pandemic, but that is exposed in the Quest that is the vehicle for the project - maybe you will follow that story too.

Still, I guess you’re wondering: what has this to do with the Good Deeds Challenge, and why am I entering this ‘story’; when in fact am I going to get to the point!

Good point!  The Quest I am proposing is morphing into a BeQuest. By pledging to fly, by planning to travel - and when it is safe to do so, taking off again and visiting destinations - you will actually be doing good and restoring livelihoods, all around the globe, as others join you.

However, one can’t assume that demand will just surge back on a certain date: the pandemic is with us for some time yet and returning travellers - certainly here in Australia - are bringing the virus back. It is being imported daily on repatriation flights, but that is being contained - mostly. Even as I’m doing the final edit, the main news item is the latest cluster which threatens a relapse in our freedom to move domestically. At any time even the Lucky Country could go back into another lockdown cycle - even within the next few days.

It’s a different story in Europe and the US and many other destinations, where second and even third waves are being endured, with varying degrees of national and regional lockdowns. The short-term of it is that we may be willing and ready to fly - but when will we be able? How long can the demand simmer, without being dampened or damaged or even - if it protracted - extinguished in many people.

IWillFly is my good deed, designed to stoke the demand side: plenty is being done on the supply side, with the industry taking many steps to make flying safer in the COVID era. Many destinations still look shaky for some time to come.

Back to the hope: yearning to fly can be the fuel. Travelling first in your mind to your desired and undiscovered destination can stoke the yearning, and that is the goal of the Quest.

Your good deed can be done for others - by doing something good for yourself. You can give the gift of hope for a returning livelihood, a return to professions, a resumption of service and customer care, a resurgence of hospitality.

If this true real-time story makes the cut as an entry, I will have already started publishing the clues of the Quest On Vocal, and elsewhere.

I can only write this from the first person - it is my project and my passion - but it is all for the third person: you as a traveller, and the you who is involved in the affected industries.

The hope will outlive the despair

and the now cherished customers return

we will help the yearning slow-burn

ready for the day

to be fanned back to flame

ready for the day

to get back on that plane

and fly - to the ends of the earth.

It’s a fabulous quest - hence the beginning artwork - but it is all to real-life.

I didn’t enter this story to win the prize, but to win you over. I will win if you take on the Quest, and in doing so help so many others. Good deed done - and multiplied.

I Will Fly - will you?