1 After reading "Flying West at Night", I first learned that the book "Flying West at Night" was from an official WeChat account article that pushed books. I saw this is a biography describing the life of African female pilots. I don't think I've ever read an article about Africa. Everyone says it's a distant, mysterious and desolate place. But why is Africa mysterious and wild? With such doubts and yearning, I began to look for this book on major reading platforms. Finally, I found it and started my "exploration" of Africa in my mind.
Burrell markham, a white girl from Leicestershire, England, went to Kenya with her father at the age of four, and then began her interesting and adventurous childhood, adolescence and adolescence in Africa. Both the description of natural landscape and the creation of humanistic atmosphere in the book are full of tropical colors. It is hard to imagine that a white girl would become a female pilot from the beginning to the end of horse racing training in Kenya in the 1920s and 1930s. She trained horse racing with her father and gave birth to a horse. At the age of eighteen, she became the first woman in Africa to hold a horse racing trainer's license. She followed Nadi hunters into the jungle to hunt warthogs and was attacked by lions. Learn to fly a plane, fly a plane through no man's land alone, carry goods alone in the dark, search and rescue pilots, fly a plane to find elephants, fly from Nairobi to London six times, and fly across the Atlantic Ocean from London to the United States. Burrell's life is a legend in itself. She has too many labels of honor-the first woman in Africa with a horse racing trainer's license, the first professional female pilot in Africa, and the first pilot to fly a plane from Britain to the United States alone. Every experience of burrell, even the ordinary daily life, will become a distant dream of many young people now, and it can only be a dream.
If life is a game of upgrading monsters, it seems that burrell Markhan has always won the game of life. Although she was attacked by warthogs, lions and elephants, although she faced a critical moment in her escape, she always escaped unscathed in the "tiger's mouth". I think that's because she has a firm heart and hard-working hands. Her soul is accustomed to adventure and development, and this spirit gives her the quality of determination. There is no sadness about spring, no sadness, no affectation. She just put all her energy and enthusiasm into what she is doing. Integrate with the local aborigines and live the same hard and adventurous life; Committed to the training of horse racing, concerned about horse racing; Go all out to learn to fly, and love flying in my bones. It is these that made her escape from the gravity of the earth, from the conventional imagination of women at that time and even now, and live on a small planet that only belongs to her. In the final analysis, her "success" in the eyes of the world is just a gift from fate that she loves life and lives seriously.
I have flown several times, but I have never flown at night. I like watching the sky and clouds outside on the plane, sometimes gentle, sometimes happy, sometimes mysterious, sometimes magical. After watching it, every time I sit on the plane and look at the scenery outside the porthole, if it weren't for the noise of the engine, I would even wonder if the plane was flying in the sky. I think, burrell markham, who used to fly alone in such unbreakable darkness, sat in the cockpit and flew alone at night. What can she see? What's the difference between what she saw and what she felt? What attracted her to have a boiling passion as always?
As burrell said, "The soul of Africa, her integrity, her slow and tenacious life pulse and her unique rhythm are beyond the comprehension of an intruder unless you have been immersed in her endless gentle rhythm in childhood. Otherwise, you are like a bystander, watching the Masai fighting dance, but you know nothing about its music and the meaning of the dance steps. " I think I am such a bystander, not even an intruder. I saw Africa and her nearly a century ago through my fingers outside the book. There are thousands of such "me" in Qian Qian. For her, it's like a city that will be thrown to the end of the horizon at any time by the wings that take off, and it's also like the thick darkness that she often passes through in the night flight. Nothing, nothing. So she hasn't published any other works except "Flying to the West at Night", although I think her writing style is very attractive. Burrell said, "I have been alone for too long, and silence has become a habit." This may be her answer to the world.
I originally read this book to learn about Africa. Unexpectedly, this book finally gave me some unexpected feelings. Burrell is not a hero in my eyes. She is just a soldier for life, loyal only to her own soldiers. This book let me know about a woman warrior and a little about human history in Africa. In this era when reading is just for pleasure, this book may be just a short escape, which will take you to an Africa that is no longer described in the book. When I closed the book, nothing changed. You are still you, and you are still fighting monsters in your world. But you know, there was such a life, such a world, such a belief, such a person. From then on, you believe that no matter in past lives or the afterlife, there will always be people who live the life you want and become the person you want to be.
Feelings of flying to the West at night 2 "Life is life, and happiness is happiness. But the goldfish died and everything was silent. "
Reading the middle position of a book here, another climax came. When the author and his partner were in danger under the gaze of an elephant, their partner didn't shoot. I sighed and said this old African proverb. Killing elephants entrusted by employers is life, and love for elephants is happiness. Then you should be just a goldfish, and life and death seem irrelevant. No one remembers you alive, sighing with beauty and pride.
I don't know why I am here, and what my tears will want to express. My nose hurts.
"If you are not brave enough, smart men and women are no different."
Before the old aborigine chose to leave his place of residence for the first time, the author told him this proverb, which encouraged him. The old man wrapped his head in a blanket all the way. Upon arrival, he said that he saw lakes, oceans and peaks. Because of the terrain, many people can't leave their place of residence by ordinary means of transportation and live for a lifetime. The courage to leave like that is the courage to start as a human being.
"When you sit and talk to others, you are lonely-so are others. No matter where you are, as long as the night falls and the flame burns freely with the wind that comes and goes freely, you are lonely. Who is listening to you except yourself? What do you think means to others? The world is over there and you are here-these are the only two poles left and the only reality.
You talk, but who's listening? Listen, but who's talking? Is it someone you know? Can what he said explain the stars, or answer the questions raised by sleepless birds? Thinking about these problems, putting your arms around your knees and staring at the fire and the ashes on the side, these problems are your problems.
"Listen! Simba is hungry tonight. "
The young native servant explained the first warning from a lion, which was wandering quietly in the distance. A hyena hid in a warm camp, and the tent crackled in the wind.
But Simba is not hungry. It's just lonely, because it's brave and unique, but it's restless at night. It growled and joined our team, and so did the hyena, laughing on the mountain. A cheetah also joined in, making us feel its existence but not seeing any clues. Rhinoceros and buffalo, where are they? They are also here-somewhere here, perhaps in the thickest place of trees, or in the thorny forest that covers the sky. They are here, all here, unable to see clearly, scattered around, but sharing the same loneliness with us. "
The passage described by the author before leaving Africa is fascinating. The soul has drifted into that world, only animals and heat. Loneliness is eternal, right? Loneliness of human beings and loneliness of animals. Only when they are lonely, what will they do to try to find more friends like us?
It was not until this year that I gradually realized that some things need to be done by myself. No one can enter your loneliness. It's like some people have nothing in their hearts, even if they look shiny. Like a wasteland, without a blade of grass. Maybe he won't be lonely, or he won't feel so bad when he is lonely. I just can't connect with others.
My loneliness, which I once escaped, does not exist as long as I can't see or touch it. I like to be lively and laugh, but I can't stand the feeling of being out of touch with the outside world. I'm afraid of waking up in the middle of the night. It will make me think about the origin of the universe, and I just want to sleep quietly. Now I have to face it.
The author's loneliness is vast and magnificent. Just like she is in the clouds in the sky, there is no secularity and no human settlement in her loneliness. Only clouds, dazzling sunshine and beautiful planes.
"Maybe when you finish your life, you will find it better to know others than yourself. You learn to observe others, but never yourself, because you are struggling in loneliness. If you read, or play cards, or take care of a dog, you are running away from yourself. The aversion to loneliness is as natural as the instinct to survive. If it weren't for this, human beings wouldn't bother to create any alphabet, or sum up language from animal calls, or travel between continents-everyone wants to know what others are like.
Even if you are alone in the plane for such a short time, you will inevitably be alone, and you can't see anything except instruments and hands in the weak light; There is no good plan except your own courage; There is nothing to think about except those beliefs, faces and hopes rooted in your mind-this experience is as magical as finding strangers walking side by side with you at night. You are a stranger. "
Finally, the author visited the city and his own country, and returned to Africa. Live a life of training horses. What you have experienced is forgotten like the passing time, or stored by writing. Africa is like a destination, just like going back to the place you love. Who can muster all the courage?
The book will have the last page, and friendship will be diluted one day.
Loneliness is precious.
I'm free.