Narrative

Kite Flying

The walk to the park felt longer than usual; the stiff wind was in our face, the hot sun was at our back, and the kids rocked the double stroller furiously with every anxious kick of their legs.

“Take the shortcut,” pleaded Albert.

“Shortcut,” echoed Kari in her two-year-old way. She mimics everything her older brother says. He’s five, but he has the vocabulary of a third grader—a smart third grader.

We made the turn at the end of the street, and the park swung into view. The swings rocked rhythmically in the strong wind despite the shelter of hundred-foot oak trees and a fenced tennis court. We followed the asphalt path as it curved around the playground, dodging (for the moment) the temptation of slides and fire poles.

“Finally. Kite! Kite! Kite!” squealed Albert, unable to restrain his excitement any longer. Kari replied with a series of high pitched giggles.

We parked the stroller in the only shade available, the short shadow of a white pine—no longer than five or six feet in the early afternoon sun. We retrieved the kites from the storage bin beneath the stroller as the kids clamored out of their seats and onto the lawn. It took an unforgivably long twenty seconds to unfurl the tail streamers, insert the aluminum ribs, and clip on the spool of string. I handed Albert his kite. My wife worked furiously to assemble the other while Kari tugged relentlessly at her shorts.

Albert ran to his predestined spot in the middle of the field, stamped down a cluster of yellow dandelions, and tossed the kite into the air. The line instantly snapped taught, pulling the spool from his hands. I grabbed it instinctively as it rocketed past my head. The shock of the potential loss hadn’t even had time to register in Albert’s mind.

I unspooled the string and let the kite soar high into the air. The strong breeze tugged mightily at the kite, sending it first into a nose dive, then a steep recovery, a stall, a spin, and finally a steady flight at near one hundred feet. I placed the plastic handle firmly in Albert’s fingers and check his grip before I let go. This time he held it tightly.

I sat in the grass for nearly twenty minutes and watched him fly his kite. Twenty minutes is an eternity for a five year old. He was focused. I was impressed by his attention to the kite. If it started to dive he would yell out and I would remind him to pull against it to add tension to the string; the kite would recover and he would shriek with glee as the two dimensional likeness of his favorite video game character—a blue Angry Bird—rocketed back into the sky.

I looked from my son to the kite and back again. I marveled that in an age of iPads, Xboxs, and Disney Junior, a kindergartener-to-be would still prefer to play outside on a hot, windy day with a five dollar piece of nylon. But nothing lasts forever, and his attention soon flagged. He was distracted by bugs, beads of sweat running down his neck, and that ever present playground on the horizon.

My attention had flagged as well; I had grown weary of staring at a pale blue kite against a paler blue sky. I was busy blinking away spots when I heard him yell.

“Bluuuue-birrrrrd!” There was panic in his voice. I responded without hesitation—without thinking about what could be wrong. I leaped to my feet and found my stride almost instantly. The ill-fated kite hurtled towards a nearby oak; I saw the plastic handle dangling from the end of a hundred feet of kite string; it bounced violently along the ground, popping a few feet into the air every few seconds. But I ran with desperation, blind to the pain of my muscles—muscles that hadn’t run at full force in a decade at least. Somewhere in the distance my wife shouted her encouragement. Her voice came to me, it seemed, as from the depths of time.

I’m still not sure how I managed it. I stood at the foot of the oak staring up at the Angry Bird. It stared back at me unempathetically. My son and wife had stopped screaming. I expected him to be at my side, but when I turned I could see him standing where I had left him. He was fidgeting with something in the grass at his feet, the excitement and tension of the moment lost on him. Casually, I reached up and pulled the kite down and checked it for damage. It was intact.

I spent the next few minutes respooling the string. By the time I finished, Albert was on the swings with his sister.