Circling Skies

I’ve been playing this Pink Floyd song over and over in my head for the last few days. 

It is not even that catchy, it just moves me for some reason.

The song is Learning To Fly, and it is not one of the more popular of the Floydian discography.

It tells a story of who we know as Icarus, of the Greek myth, a man yearning to take to the skies and soar among the birds, but can’t seem to break away from the Earth’s gravitational pull, and more so, man’s gravitational pull of life. The inability to leave one’s problems behind and drift untroubled amidst the clouds. 

It’s a weird sort of story, but it resonates with me for some reason. Perhaps it’s to do with the way it’s been told, the vocal empathy conveyed in the words, giving some sort of conviction with what’s been said.

The vocal intonation in the word sky, the subtle pilots’ instructions midway through the track, the perfectly timed synth. It just comes together so well, taking you through those very skies, you yourself yearning to take flight.

I’m not a producer or anything of that sort, but I am a photographer.

This is my version (or what I can come up with within my skill set and proximity to a beautiful sky) of Learning To Fly. 

I want to make more art, I want to learn the world.

I am limited by copious amounts of procrastination and laziness, but that is the knowledge seekers struggle.

“A soul in tension that’s learning to fly,

Condition grounded but determined to try. 

Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit I.”