Kites and Shadows

The light off the kites in the park this afternoon was luminous. Duncan and I stood on the hill overlooking the lake, watching seven or eight kites flap in the cool wind. They were not ordinary kites, not the kind I bought at Grand Central as a kid, with their goofy faces or racing stripes, but big, heavy grown-up things, the kind of kites that you need a license to fly. Their operators used both hands to steer them with fancy plastic grips and brightly colored synthetic string, perfect for landing a swordfish. One kite, much smaller than the others, but still quite impressive made a buzzing noise––like a six-foot long wasp–– as it dove, cutting through the air, careening earthward at a remarkable speed, only to turn sharply and suddenly, just above our heads before it raced back into the blue. Another kite, perhaps ten feet long and four feet high, and made of bright red fabric, the kind parachutes are made of, was so big that each time it caught the wind and lifted higher, its driver was pulled briefly off his feet and set back down onto the ground as though fastened to a giant, lazy yo-yo.

I became just as enamored of their shadows as I was of the kites themselves and spent several long minutes watching them speed across the grass then across Duncan's face and back before momentarily vanishing until they interrupted my patch of sunlight once again. The shadow of a small child floated into my field of vision, its arms outspread as it danced a loping gallop from behind me. "Look daddy," it cried, "I'm flying! I'm an eagle!" I smiled and glanced up at the four year old who was racing amid the kite shadows, watching his own shadow intently, oblivious in that wonderful childlike way I love so much about Elijah.

I was an eagle once, too, I thought, recalling my years at Edahow Elementary, Home of the Eagles. I was a panther during junior high, an Indian in high school, briefly a Bengal for two years at Idaho State University, and finally, at Lake Forest, a forester, whatever that was. I'd liked being an eagle although our school lacked any organized sports teams so I'm not quite sure what purpose our mascot served, but it seemed a grand thing to be nonetheless and painted in gold on the maroon t-shirts they sold at fund-raisers it was quite handsome. I was an eagle the last time I actually flew a kite and as I watched that little boy fly from the grass where he danced and chased the shadows under the eyes of his father, I wondered what I'd be this time, nearly thirty years later. My various alumni associations would like to think I'm still an Indian or a forester and I probably am, but only nostalgically. Childhood and youth sometimes seem far away, a dim blur of sepia memories.

No, I'm not those things any longer, but if I had to choose, if someone pressed the issue I'd probably be a Retriever. Watching Duncan watch the kites, watching him watch the sunlight on the lake and the little boy playing around him I thought that there are far worse things to aspire to be and far few things better.