Let's go fly a KITE

I wrote this and forgot to post it.  So my a-z is slightly out of order.


I wasn't sure what to write about for the letter K, but after writing about JOY yesterday and watching Saving Mr Banks this afternoon, I decided that writing about kite flying would be perfect.  In the movie, Emma Thompson's rigid, unpleasant Mrs. Travers, softens a bit when she hears the Let's Go Fly a Kite song.  It was exhilarating to watch.  It reminded me of learning to play the ukulele when I was in Grade 6 and playing that song over and over again, pure joy coursing through me the whole time.

I remember my first kite.  I made it out of a diamond shaped piece of paper and a string of wool. Of course it didn't fly.  But that didn't matter much, it felt like it was flying when I ran around with it.  My younger brother discovered that putting sticks on it made it look more authentic but alas, no more air worthy.  And then came the day when my father bought us  real kites and took us to the field near his apartment to fly them.  My kite was a bat.  All black, bat shaped with two big yellow and white eyes.  I LOVED it.  I figured I would take it out of it's package and it would instantly fly to up to the sky when I started running.  Not so.  It required more patience than I possessed and I grew frustrated.  But finally the moment came when my dad got the kite airborne, and gave me the string to hold on to.  It didn't stay up long, and we didn't get it up again that day.  But it was long enough for me to get hooked.

I spent a warm, windy afternoon, at the school yard a few weeks later with my bat kite.  There were other kids with kites, but I thought mine was the coolest.  And to my utter joy, I was the only one who got my kite up in the air.  And it stayed up there.   And stayed.  And stayed while I stood and held the string.  And I laid down on the grass and held the string, and I walked around and held the string.   Finally the kite made a crash landing on top of the big screen behind the baseball field and it was ruined.  No more kite.  But I realized after my initial disappointment, that the pure joy I felt in getting the kite in the air was the whole point of the activity.  Once it was up...well it was kind of boring.

Sort of a metaphor for life don't you think?  Enjoy the journey.