Up, up and away

Up, up and away is the phrase that gathers Emma’s remembered conviction that she can fly: for a moment, the depressive room falls away and the prospect of flight feels physically real. Its force lies in the contrast between that ecstatic certainty and the careful, unsuccessful steps she says she took to test it without making a dangerous leap.

The phrase and its moment

The expression follows Emma’s recollection of standing with a balcony balustrade pressing against her waist. Beyond it, what had once seemed like endless nothingness becomes, in the altered logic of the experience, open space: a blank page she can describe, dive into, and fold around herself. She feels wind beneath her arms, lifting her and carrying her upward after a dive. The phrase gives this rising sensation a brief, emphatic form.

Flight as temporary release

The remembered experience is both exhilarating and frighteningly compelling. When Emma opens her eyes, the bleakness of the room returns; she can barely hold back tears because, for an instant, the depression had disappeared and she had been absorbed by the belief that she could fly. The phrase therefore marks not a lasting change in her circumstances but a momentary escape from them, inseparable from the manic conviction that gives the escape its intensity.

Belief and cautious testing

Asked whether she jumped, Emma says she never did. She explains that she wanted to, but worried that the wind might be wrong or that she might not have enough room to dive forward and get it right at once. Instead, she reasoned that she could build up in small steps. Her first test was a stool: if the attempt failed, she thought, the consequences would at least remain manageable. It did not work. That failed experiment distinguishes the felt certainty behind Up, up and away from an actual flight, while showing how Emma tried to translate the conviction into action without immediately risking a leap from the balcony.