Kite

I never had a kite as a child. Like many things I'm discovering in my adulthood (no indoor pets, regular meals, bedtimes), this may have been wisdom on my parents' part. But don't tell them that. It might go to their heads.

Brian and I found kites at Costco. They were amazing. We demand awesomeness in everything we do, and kites were to be no exception. We underestimated, however, just how awesome conditions had to be in order to actually fly the kites. Eight-mile-an-hour wind doesn't sound like much. I figured it'd be about the same as a stiff breeze. I'm not the measurements and numbers person in this relationship. Brian is. So I probably should have listened to Brian to avoid the failure of the first kite expedition.

The wind on the first day was whipping my hair all over the place and pulling at the kites as four of us trekked to the park. Clearly there was enough wind to fly three kites. It was going to be magnificent! I could just see my butterfly kite sailing high against the clouds, the thin, filmy tails streaming out behind it. I'm not really a butterfly-kite person, but the tails sold me. Brian's kite was hexagonal with a koi on it and didn't have a tail at all. He liked it and in a funny way it suited him very well.

My excitement and determination to fulfill a childhood dream far outlasted all three of my companions' enthusiasm or stamina. After seven minutes it was fairly obvious to anyone that the wind was not steady or strong enough to fly even Genna's normal diamond-shaped kite, much less our much larger contraptions. But it took fifty-three more minutes of failed attempts and tangled kite tails before I surrendered the field and returned dejectedly to Genna's house for hot chocolate, which only made me feel a little bit better.

The second excursion went better, though Brian sustained a minor injury when his kite tried to decapitate him. No really, it tried. We had taken advantage of a perfectly clear and windy day to run our kites to an empty parking lot where once again we spent entirely too long trying to get my butterfly airborne. After a particularly irritating attempt ended with my kite tails battling tree branches, we set the butterfly aside for a little and focused on Brian's koi kite.

Brian's kite was very appropriately Brian's. While my kite had fluttered and coasted beautifully the moment it reached roof height, it tended to continue coasting when it ought to have been climbing. Despite this defect and its resulting short-lived flights, I gloried in every second of its successful sailing. Brian's kite was never so dainty or elegant. From the instant it left Brian's hand, that kite was trying to reach the sun. It kicked and bucked and fought for height. It twisted and torqued and tacked against the pull of the string and alternately clambered to the peak of its tether or crashed to the pavement in stunning failure. There was no in between. All it really needed for more flair was medieval trumpeters.

I had thought we'd be another half hour at trying to get Brian's kite up, but much like its owner, the kite took only a few tries to master its purpose. In an inexplicable blink of an eye, the kite was soaring. It stopped for nothing and wasted no time on frivolous coasting. There were no dainty drifts or quiet, fluttering sails. Just dominance. That kite ruled the sky.

It was better than I had ever dreamed it would be. Even though Brian had done all the hard work to get the kite up (I held the handle while he maneuvered the kite end and repeatedly threw it into the wind), he let me continue to fly it and play out its line once it was fully in flight. This was better than that fly-a-kite scene from Mary Poppins. I felt more than a little guilty. This was his kite, after all, and he had been the one to pancake dive to the ground when the kite went into a killer spiral and the line almost dissected him. (Note to self: Write to Randall Munroe and query under what conditions a kite string would be powerful enough to inflict serious bodily injury to a person. Also, bring one helmet to next kite flying.)

But Brian is a sweetheart and let me fly the kite while he admired his hard work from a comfortable position leaning against the nearby fence. I had to admit his kite was marvelous and we soon fell to wondering how high the kite would fly if we had enough string. (Oooh! Second question for Randall Munroe!) I passed Brian the kite handle and took up my butterfly. It was useless trying to get my kite in the air just now since the wind had died down at our level. But Brian's koi was flying as stately as ever. I wanted to know if it could fly at double its current length.

It could. Of course it could. It's the kite of awesomeness. We suffered several rope burns feeding that insatiable kite more length. But it was worth it to see the kite the size of a dime in the clear, blue sky. We laid on the grass for hours watching it, and all the while I quietly held my butterfly at my side. It's ok. She would have her chance.

We didn't get another good kite-flying day for weeks and when we did, it was in the brisk part of early fall when we had to decide how worth it kite-flying would be in comparison to how chapped the wind would make our hands. I was willing to go for it, though, because as yet my kite had not really flown. My kite needed to fly. She was beautiful and I could just hear her begging to sail just as high as Brian's koi. So with fresh determination we set out accompanied by Brian's youngest sister to fly our kites in an empty field.

With predictable repetition, my kite failed once again to gain proper height. She would rise to about half the length of her tether and then meander back and forth in aimless zig-zags. At any given moment and regardless of the strength or direction of the wind, she would plummet slowly in an obvious display of color and flutter. She loved nothing more than to make me think she was climbing high only to pause in her ascent and gracefully flap her wings before swooping left and right in figure eights. Her tails were exquisite when she did this, trailing as they did for twenty beautiful feet behind her. But no amount of coaxing, pleading, begging, or bargaining would make her go more than sixty percent of her rope. Brian, with inexhaustible patience, launched my butterfly again, and again, and again into the wind until one faster-than-normal nose dive made me fear for her health. I brought my butterfly in and we turned our attentions instead to Brian's koi.

Now a practiced hand after one spectacular, shiny success, Brian launched his champion kite into the sky. His koi climbed immediately, anxious once again to enter space. Within a minute he had fed it its entire length of string and still the kite pulled and pulled for more height. The kite knew there was more string to be had and impatiently demanded more. For a second time, I unstrung my butterfly and rested her belly-down in the crabgrass to double the tether for the koi. He drank the length in and inflicted yet more string burns as he scaled the atmospheres. Even two strings were not enough. He reached the end of the line with a hard jerk and hungrily pulled for more.

We had, however, only the two strings from the Costco kites. Brian's sister's kite had flown only a little and she had set it aside to watch the koi. Naturally, we turned to the resources at hand and began disassembling his sister's kite to feed the koi. His sister helped him while I held firm to the handle of the koi. It took an impressive amount of strength to keep hold of that kite. But I had a good grip on it and dared to look away for a moment to watch Brian. 

That moment was all the kite needed. With a loud SNAP! the handle in my hand broke into two pieces and I was no longer in control of the koi in the sky. Brian's reflexes are remarkable and at the sound of the handle breaking he had bounded away after the other end of the handle. I stared blankly at the broken plastic in my hand for a second before following suit after Brian. There was never a chance that I'd catch up with either Brian or the kite, but Brian had a good shot at chasing it down. Or so I thought. I hobbled dementedly across the field in a broken gait, watching Brian and his sister sprint in a dead heat for the tumbling plastic handle.

Neither of them made it. The field ended in a tall wooden fence on the far side of which grew a towering, branch-filled tree. (Yes, I know all trees have branches, but this one had so many branches!) Caught deftly on the end of one supple bough was the other half of the handle I still clutched in my hand. By the time I stumbled, quite literally, onto the scene, Brian and his sister had already been discussing retrieval tactics for a few minutes.

Spoiler alert: we didn't get the kite back. We tried. For hours. And hours. Fruitlessly. The attempts weren't even reasonable after a little. I think at one point there had been discussion of putting Brian's sister on my shoulders, even though Brian would have been able to touch the top of her head with his hand even if we did that. We fetched ladders and poles, or at least Brian did while his sister and I kept vigil beneath the kite string. But physics had us long since beat. The tree was too tall and the kite was pulling too hard. As dusk began to fall, Brian gently pulled me away from the tree. 

I felt terrible. This kite was our responsibility. We couldn't just leave it there abandoned heartlessly in a field! It's not like the kite can't see us and doesn't know that we're walking away from it! I wanted to call out to the kite and tell him we'd be back for him. That we'd find him even if we had to drive all over the city to see where he fell. But I was a twenty-seven year-old college graduate and that would have been infantile. Even Brian would have given me a funny look if I had done that.

We trailed quietly back to where both the other kites still sat on the ground. Brian's sister's was at least still complete. Mine was now stringless. I lingered at the edge of the field, casting about for a reason to wait a little longer, see if the wind died down in just another minute. Brian tugged my sleeve and nodded towards the house. It was time to go. I followed along, but lagged behind for just a second so I could surreptitiously give my butterfly a secret hug. At least she wasn't the one who was lost. But that made me feel terribly guilty.

Dear Koi. I'm sorry we lost you. If I'd had my way, we'd have searched for you all night and all day. I hope you broke free and flew to the flippin' moon. 

Dear Butterfly. I'll find you another string. I promise.

Never give a writer a kite.