Flying Kites

Flying Kites

She has a kite – a simple, red kite that she flies on the weekends.

She’s a grown woman, but, like a little girl, she still flies her kite.

She’s not the most skilled kite flier. Her kite never soars very deep into the sky. Plus, her kite is very basic, which probably holds her kite flying back some.

She’s not the most skilled kite flier. People with far more skill and more exotic kites guide theirs far deeper into the sky.

Still, while her kite’s up there floating at a few hundred feet, she’s at ease. It’s a tranquility she savors. It’s a peace that satiates her enough to get through another lonely week. It’s a calm that temporarily washes away the anxieties and frustrations of the past week, as well as her projections about the week to come. It purges her of her anxieties for a spell. It purges them so there’s room for the fresh anxieties and frustrations that come every Monday.

She’s lonely sometimes. But she doesn’t feel it while her kite is flying.

Most people, she’s found, don’t appreciate kite flying anymore.

To ease her loneliness, she’s sought friends. But most of those people cared nothing for kites.

They invited her to do things. Parties. Movies. Trips. Sometimes she accepted, but she always prioritized her kite first. These people thought she was strange. They thought her too aloof, so eventually they abandoned her just as she’d come to accept the need to abandon them too.

To ease her loneliness, she’s sought the company of men.

She’s found men who plainly say that her kite flying is dumb.

She found other men who’ve given her hobby a try, only to abandon it as a childish, worthless waste of time.

She even found a few of the rarest men – ones who enjoy kite flying. Men with exotic kites who can fly far deeper in the sky than she can with her basic, red one. These are men who take pride in their precious kites and their ability to guide them into the deepest depths of the sky.

But none of those men ever understood that, for her, kite flying has nothing to do with pride. It has only to do with escape. It has only to do with giving herself moments to try to understand herself. In demanding more of herself and her kite, the tranquility she savors – even needs – gets lost within those demands.

Yet, they insist her hobby ought to incorporate pride. She ought to hold herself to a standard of always wanting to be a better kite flier. As a result, she’s had to reject even them – these rarest of men who know and even appreciate a little bit about kite flying.

So she takes her basic, red kite out alone every weekend. And flies it all by herself, in a tranquil solitude that few others but her will ever understand.