Flying Kites

In summer, after schools close for the much anticipated vacation-time,  we spend some of our days to fly a kite. Summer afternoons are the best times to fly a kite. I remember when I was in grade school, there was a big open space near our school bounded on the east side by the city church and the west side by the province's first and only seminary at that time. It was a perfect place to fly our kites which were made out of plain grade school writing paper (or sometimes just a small piece of yesterday's newspaper). They were just simple kites but it was pure joy to fly them while running around that great big open space trying to catch the wind, "out-flying" everybody else's kite. It truly was a happy and memorable time of my life. 

But more than the fun and the excitement, there were things, too that I learned that would later prove useful in my adult life. It's just that the use of such lessons wouldn't become apparent to me until I really stopped and thought about them much much later in my life. 

I learned that in kite-flying, you will not truly enjoy it if you have a very short thread or string with which you'll harness the kite. It has to be long enough so that the kite can catch the higher wind and fly almost on its own. The string has to be strong enough too, to withstand a sudden gust of wind. But it has to be light enough as well so as not to weigh-down the kite itself. 

I learned that not all kites are the same, even if you make them yourself from the same materials. A kite may have a tendency to veer left or to to the right. Others may outright be out of balance and veer immediately downward to the ground. To fly these kites require total concentration, anticipation and great control using it's only connection to you, the string. However, there are some kites which for some unknown or yet undiscovered reasons, fly with utmost stability requiring nothing more than a steady hold on the string. These are the best kites to fly as they allow the kite-flyer to enjoy the most out of its flying time. Of course, as in anything else, there are exceptions. Some kite-flyers prefer the unstable ones as they find the challenge of controlling it as a satisfying experience as well. 

I also learned that it's not easy, though not impossible, to fly a kite alone. One needs someone to bring the kite at some distance and prompt it to fly by tossing it up in the air. Besides, flying a kite alone is not really fun. And for practical reasons, if the string breaks and you need to go after the kite, it would be much easier if you had help from someone else. That someone else can also take the turn in handling the kite whenever one's arms get tired flying it. And last but not the least, there's someone whom you can talk to forever about the joys, the thrill, and the adventure of a sunny summer afternoon on the way back home.

I learned that having a kite soar high depends on the success you have in controlling the string and guiding the kite while it is yet just a few feet above the ground. The key is to determine from where the wind is coming from, pulling the string and setting the kite against it, and gently and slowly releasing more string as the kite starts to increase its height. Obviously, the kite will not attain height if you do not give it enough string to fly.

I learned patience in my kite flying, too. Not all kites fly the very first time they are tossed up against the wind. It sometimes take three or four or even five times before it catches the wind and starts to elevate. You need to start over and over again every time the kite fails to catch the wind. Sometimes, a few adjustments, a cut here, a cut there, need to be made to get the proper balance. There's no science involved there. It's just plain and simple gut-feel or what maybe referred to as "trial-and-error."

And I learned that some days, the wind is just too strong and you run the risk of ruining your kite if you insist on flying against very strong winds. Or, on the opposite end, it is of no use to try and fly a kite when there's no wind at all. To insist on flying a kite under these circumstances is to ensure that your kite-flying will end in disappointment and frustration.

I should also note that it is entirely possible for the kite to break a string (due to the weak quality of the string, or strong wind, or both) and to lose the kite. But even as the kite flies away from our control, we still try to follow it's direction and try locate it where we believe it has landed. The instinct to recover the kite is sometimes so overwhelming that we can sometimes climb the highest tree or risk climbing an electric post just to get to our kite. The key, of course, to the recovery of the wayward kite is to find the end of the string from the point where it broke, and most surely you'll find the kite at the end of it.

When the kite soars high, there is infinite joy in seeing them fly against the wind, against the clear blue sky. 

I haven't flown a kite since I was a kid in grade school but I and my kite-flying buddy, immensely enjoy seeing our kites fly high, soaring like eagles in the sky. And I'm happy with the thought that although our kites are no longer connected to some strings under our control, they continue to climb the heights with our wind beneath their wings.

We've named our kites ZARA, JUSTIN and IDA.

(This is dedicated to all the parents, especially the mothers in the group.)