I'm furious at my sister Althea for something she did--never mind what. But what she did is irreversible. My rage won't undo it now, so I keep nagging myself, saying "I should let go." But all day, I feel just as mad; I have to suppress urges to lash out at random.

At dusk, I finally do something to discharge it. A friend lends me a weird flimsy hang-glider shaped like a horseshoe crab. I launch myself from a cliff out over the sea. Crab-gliders are tricky to turn around, and I go quite a way out before even trying. Other fliers are alarmed, yell warnings that I'm being reckless. Other gliders, ultralights and balloons fill the sky, wheeling above small boats and hydrofoils. Too disorganized for a regatta, but there are a hundred people within a mile--even if I do fall in, I'd be rescued quickly enough.

I realize suddenly that if I hadn't jumped off the cliff, I really would have done something violent--I'm that angry. This was the safest response, given the provocation. If I'd really acted out my feelings, I'd be in jail--or dead.

Should be proud of my good sense, for merely flying a bit wildly, instead.

NOTES

• Althea = doing what you must to fit in--at least in many of my dreams.
• Angry = last night, I went to an art salon to try out a new song I'd written. But I felt shy and delayed, listening to a lot of bad poets. But most people left after reading their own, denying me an audience for my song after I'd heard and critiqued theirs! I felt they cheated me, violated the unspoken agreement behind an open mike event, but I hid that. Instead, I got mad at myself for not speaking up sooner.
• Risky flight = tried to sing and play keyboard at the same time, in front of an audience! It was a stretch for me--and a set-up for disaster. I might have frozen, forgotten how to play. Maybe I didn't want a big audience. Rather than simple self-sabotage, delaying until the audience shrank may have been an unconscious compromise all sides of me could accept.
• ACTION 1: practice simultaneous singing and playing more, before pushing yourself on stage! The strongest song in the world's not strong if I can't play it.
• ACTION 2: quit worrying about how mad I get at myself. It looks bad to others, but the way I discharge it works for me. Nothing terrible happened.

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