The Kite

Once upon a time ago I was a kite. I was stored with the other kites, content and happy to be the shape of the wind and to wait for my time. And when it was my time, somebody was there to help me take off. One, two, three attempts, or as many as needed, they’d run through the meadow with me, and the hands would let me go off on my own when I was ready. But I wasn’t really on my own.

I climbed the sky and faltered but the string on the spool of the hand that held me played me on the breeze so I could get high enough to be my full kite self. I soared and danced on a breeze laughing and happy to just be a kite. My string guided me. It pulled me in when things got rough, or conditions weren’t right. It gave me more lead when I wanted to explore, but all the while I knew it was there to ground me.

Once upon another time ago I graduated to a string on a spool. When my time was done, I was remade and repurposed. I had a big responsibility which I earned and understood through the wings of the kite I’d once been. Now I held something precious, a beautiful, coloured kite that fluttered and glided and tugged and strained while I gave it the reins it needed to be the best kite it could become.

People would look up and remark on our outline against the sky. Some said I should let the kite go off on its own to be a better kite without me. It could go higher than I ever dared to let it go and beyond the length I could become. But that wasn’t my job. I had to stay fastened, or the kite wouldn’t be a kite, now would it. Oh yes, it would be for a little while when the breeze was just right, but when the wind blew hard or not at all, the kite would have no way to get back, to wait, to play on the wind and just be a kite.

It would somersault and cartwheel for a bit and think it was still a magnificent kite until it could no longer sustain the unattachment. In the frenzy of unattachment, it would whip and fold onto itself. The kite would fall and crash and scrunch and tumble along the streets. Its parts would break off or snap and tangle, it’s fabric would tear, and fray and it would become refuse. People would walk past it, probably the same ones who had wanted you to let go, and some may comment on its colour or remark that it used to be a beautiful kite. But alas none would do for the kite what I’d once done.

I, too then, would no longer be a string. I would lay in the soil having failed at my kite holding job and perhaps feel sorry for myself because I could no longer see nor hold the kite. I would fade and ravel and fret for what once was. I would look for another, perhaps smaller kite, but my hopes of tying to another would be slim the longer I remained rotting and useless on the ground.

Then I would doubt myself as a string like the kite surely doubted itself as it lay broken and forgotten in an alley behind a dumpster and out of sight of everyone.

Once upon a later time we could be found by the kind-hearted who believed we still have purpose. They put us in blue bins and bring us to a facility where we are re-engineered. The kite is remade, and I am cleaned, refreshed, and respooled. I will never be a kite like I once was but if I’m lucky, I’ll measure my length as a kite string and hold on tight enough that the kite can be itself, but not too hard that it will want to let go or tear free.

Alas, as I think on my time as the string, I discover it is me no longer. I am now the spool. I have to teach the kite and the string the lessons I once learned about holding on just right and about the abandon of being a kite. Though I let them both go, I know I’ll be there to reel them in and stay with them when the conditions aren’t right to be neither kite, nor string, nor spool. They mightn’t like not being able to fly and soar all the time or laced to the kite and the grounding, but I remind them that there are worse things than having boundaries. Part of being the spool is to pass on that they should enjoy their time as a kite and a string while that time is upon them and do all the kitey and stringy things they can instead. If they waste their time on wanting to be free of the string or the spool it is time they can’t get back, they will have missed the best breezes looking for freedom that can’t be given to a kite nor a string. It’s a glorious thing to be a kite when you’re a kite. It’s a glorious thing to be a string when you’re a string. It’s a glorious thing to be a spool when you’re a spool.

But the kite can’t be a kite without the support of the string and the spool. They are a package deal in this wild and windy and sometimes unforgiving world where being recycled is not always available when the lending hand can’t find what’s become of you when you went so far you couldn’t get back to being anything repurposed, remade, or respooled and you pine for the time when you were a kite eagerly climbing the air.

 

 

Something about twenty-four, but who’s counting?

I remember the first day I went to grade one as vividly as if it were today. I got on a bus surrounded by the only people I knew in the whole of my world, my family. I was the 7^th one on the bus from the Linehan household so I knew six people within the confines of that yellow metal new-to-me experience. That was the day my world expanded beyond the boundaries of the Linehan fences. To make matters more complicated, I was ten days late because of a sore throat that had taken me out like so many before it and so many to come.

That first time going to school was a terrifying rebirth in ways that none would particularly understand today because of play dates, day care, pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, MacDonalds, Hockey, Soccer, Music, camps, birthday parties, etc. that allow kids to connect. Conveniences like washing machines and dryers, crock pots, air fryers, electric ranges that will cook any time you want, freezer meals, vacuums, electronic sweepers, all the things that take away the menial tasks that were once more labourious and essential to living. They were a lot bigger than menial in that they took up all the time of, really, mostly the women and mothers and there was very little time left for themselves. All these kids activities we weren’t exposed to, so my world remained inside the fence posts with the one who made all those things look easy. And that was the same for mostly every other household that we would come to know.

Now me and the five other grade one students of 1970 on Albert MacDonald’s bus from North Harbour to Our Lady of Mount Carmel school are or have turned sixty in 2024. We and the other twenty odd in our class have spread out across the world. Some we have lost, some have returned to their roots in our little bay, and some have no intention of coming back, even for a visit. Regardless, they shaped that vulnerable part of my life from that wide-eyed and frightening day on the bus until grade eleven graduation.

Not all these experiences within those eleven years were fun I might add. Like being in the crosshairs of Rayme D when he had the dodgeball, and you were the only thing between him and a win. Not fun. Well, if he got you. But if you got him, that was a different story. New friendships popped up that remain today while others are just pictures in a yearbook because I haven’t seen them since the last bell in 1981. Overall, that was a time of growth. Moving on after that was quite traumatizing, as well. Not only because of what happened to me that last summer before grade eleven but also because it was going out into the world on a new school bus with nobody familiar around to keep me company. Social media wasn’t a thing, so our only social was within the walls of the school or the endpoints of North Harbour. The September after graduation, our worlds expanded. Knowing you’d survive it because you’d done it before was cold comfort. Again, I was ten days late starting and friendships had been made of which I was never part of. Being in the crosshairs of teachers maligning me because I was a girl trying to do a “man’s” job at Civil Engineering was also terrifying. It was a thing and the was hasn't quite lived up to its name because it's still a thing.

Then I got married and moved to a new community and the world expanded again. That time I had a partner who could introduce me to this new world. Family happens as family does and the next thing the world turned upside down and I was off to school again, college this time uncaring that I was alone going through the same doors that had not been kind to me the time before. It was different, not at all intimidating. I was older and my own care was for the family I got to see on weekends.  

After that it was off to work with the federal government, new world but a few people that I'd gone through college with accompanied me on that bus into the newest expansion.

I’ve spent a little less than half my life as a federal public servant. Now I can’t believe I have twenty-four work weeks until I leave that world behind. I made a decision in January that I’d retire this year. People who don’t know what it is actually like to work as a federal public servant will say, “oh, you had it knocked,” meaning that I cruised through those twenty-seven years without much to do, with no stress, feet up, paid well, etc. That’s not the truth. To them that knows, I was driving the bus on so many things, out in front of change, pioneering, and working hard to improve things that made sense and unafraid to speak up when things didn’t. I can truly say I loved my job and even the times that the dodgeball was aimed at me was exhilarating.

My kids thought and still think I was/am a spy, but I digress.

Like all choices I make, I move on. I don’t waste time on a second guess, nor do I remake decisions. I’m excited for this new bus into the ever after of retirement. Perhaps I’ll spend some time at the wheel and perhaps I’ll do a hop on hop off version into my expansion. I have lots to look forward to and I’m not done yet. I’ll write more. I’ll adventure more. I’ll write more about those adventures. Maybe I'll start something new.

What I am most proud off is that I’ve made the most extraordinary friendships at school, at college, at work, and through writing, and those connections will continue long past my final day at work, October 15, 2024. I could never imagine all these people when I got on that bus in grade one.

As I reflect more on my twenty-four remaining weeks at work (I know the math doesn’t add up but that’s where the spy thing comes in 😉), in this year of 2024, it might seem appropriate to drink a “24” for the 24 remaining weeks, but I do have to work tomorrow and I’m allergic to beer.

Whether I have 24 minutes, hours, months, years, ahead of me, I know this is not an end but a new beginning. A chance to pick my expanding. Nothing I can change behind me. So, look out world, I’m being unleashed at a bus stop full of lessons learned and not an ounce of anxiety or fear as I look for destinations.

If you’re lucky enough to have me as your driver when you get on, your lucky enough. Kidding, not kidding. That’s up to you. Expanding happens all the time. Embrace it. Possibilities, come here till I get a look at you.

Update, we bought a house in St. Bride's so my 24 weeks turned into 18 months ~ maybe I should change that to 24 - (NAH) I'll do a 25 in 25 just to be sure. So, I did sort of change my mind, but I'll keep it at not really. The house changed my mind but the adventure will be worth it, I'm sure of that.