Amelia, where are you?

presented with a bouquet at boston airport, july 1928. photo: new york times archives, courtesy of the icp

posing in her flight suit, november 1928. photo: unknown

on the roof of boston's copley hotel. photo: jake coolidge

posing with her autogiro in rock springs, wy. june 4, 1931. photo: courtesy of steve pitcairn

amelia earhart. aviatrix. in june, 1937 amelia embarked on the the first around-the world flight at the equator. on july 2, after completing almost two-thirds of her flight, she and her navigator frederick noonan disappeared. nobody really knows what happened. search efforts to find them or at least the wreckage of their plane lasted until july 19th, 1937. but nothing was ever found. completely disappeared. forever. no answers. she was already glorious, and then she vanished and became sublime—endlessly trapped in some halo of light and magic. and that is what i think of her...that soft beautiful face seems to radiate the big life rambling wide and gallant inside of her. she looks at once shy and girlish, gutsy and relentless. and i think about what happened in those moments at the end... and how strange it is to want to know exactly how it all went down. did she sink, did she gasp, did she think about how to save herself, how to save frederick, did she wonder about her husband george, did she put her hands up in front of her face? why do i think i need to know? i have already begun to imagine and that's what matters. she vanished but that isn't the end, i get to pick up where she left off, she's gone but the story is still here, alive and shifting,... the story goes on.