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.