Writing Assignment:
The helicopter lifted the pilot and me off the ground, rising up
effortlessly. It felt to me like a dream, like when all of the sudden
you find yourself hovering above the houses on your street, or flying
smoothly over mountains and forests with the wind brushing by your
cheeks, looking down on everything below, everything that is familiar
that all of the sudden from the air looks so strange.
We were leaving Marble Point, a way station just west and north of
McMurdo station, across the sea ice. This is where helicopters stop to
refuel and where pilots stop to wait out weather. There had been a
storm over the previous two days that had kept me anchored there, cozy,
well fed and warm, with the wind hissing by outside the windows, piling
up enormous drifts against the steps and doors. Finally came a sunny,
cold, blue day, and we were off.
After rising up slowing from the gravely pad, the pilot tipped the
helicopter nose down and we started moving forward over the windblown
snow and soil, out toward the ice edge. At first we flew over the still
fast sea ice, the sea ice that had held strong against the storm. Out
in the distance I saw a vague sparkling gray, which "Beez" Bonner, the
pilot said was open water. The storm had taken out a lot of ice, taken
it out to sea.
The helicopter moved so smoothly and so fast, flying at about 500 feet.
I could see the sea ice below me, vast and white, through a window at
my feet in the rounded nose of the helicopter. The surface of the ice
was marked by wind, blown into curves and stripes, swirls and hollows.
I could see the shapes because they were different colors of
white--bright white, gray white, yellow white, blue white.
All of the sudden, it seemed, we were at the ice edge and the shapes
below changed so dramatically it took my breath away. Instead of shades
of white, suddenly there was a marvelous and beautiful contrast--the
vivid white of the edge of the sea ice, sharp as a knife edge, and just
there beside it, gray-blue open water. The color was the most
noticeable difference--a sudden shift from white to gray-blue and inky
black. Then there was the texture of it--the water was moving and
smooth, full of tiny swells and chop. The ice was, as ever, still,
solid, white.
Below
me I saw seals, some of them lying face down at the edge of the ice,
others caked with snow as if covered with a white blanket, lying on
their backs and looking up at the helicopter. We were close enough so
that I could just see their dark round eyes. Then there were Emperor
penguins, some standing tall and walking toward the edge of the ice,
others scooting toward the ice on their bellies. To see them from above
they looked so small, but I knew they were at least three feet tall, up
to my waist. From above them I could just make out the brilliant orange
on their breasts. Later we would fly over groups of the much smaller
black and white Adelie penguins, which ran from the noise of the
helicopter. They seemed as if they were looking over their shoulders as
they ran, their wings flapping wildly. We continued along the edge of
ice and sea and I looked out far into the gray blue on one side, and
far back into the sea ice on the other. By January all the ice we were
flying over would be melted and all of this below us would be full of
waves and blue, full of whales and penguins and seals, swimming in the
open water.
We neared Cape Royds, the land of Ross Island coming up fast in the
window. Whatever I saw from the window of the helicopter was so large,
as if I was sitting in the front row of movie theater and whatever was
happening on screen was happening in overwhelming scale inches from my
face. We flew over the Adelie penguin rookery at Cape Royds. It was
full of birds, all tiny black specks in the rock and snow. Then we flew
along the edge of the Barne Glacier, a wall of ice rising to my left,
all creased and crevassed with blue and white, the ice fanned and
wedged in fascinating patterns that ran from the top down the entire
height of the 100 foot face. Finally, we neared McMurdo, which,
compared to the vastness of the sea and ice and snow and mountains
I'd just come from, looked miniscule below me, its brown and green
and blue buildings like toys plunked down in some game. The helicopter
settled lower, lower, and lower still, finally coming to rest on the
gravely helipad with hardly a noticeable jostle or nudge.
Analysis:What I tried to do with this exercise is describe
something about a place from a different perspective, in this case,
from the air. I tried to describe the perspective from which I was
looking, and then how things seemed different from the air--different
in size and shape. I also tried to describe the effect of moving
smoothly and quickly over what I was seeing. I wrote the seals looked
UP at me and the penguins did too.
Writing Assignment:Try writing about a place you know or have
been in from a different perspective. You may, for instance, want to
get down on the ground and look at it from eye level. Or, if you can,
take part of the place and put it under a microscope, or look at it
through a magnifying glass, or binoculars, or a telescope. Or, you can
climb a tree and look down on it, or climb a mountain and look down on
it. Or, you can imagine yourself as a small person in amongst the
environment, just as you could imagine yourself flying over it. The
goal is to try to get a fresh look at the place. Include all the
details you can that show how you are looking at the place from a
different perspective, with new eyes.
Illustration is of seals on the ice as seen from the air.
Copyright 11.24.97
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