Dear Flyers,
The sky is waiting for you, so today, a little flier on flyers- Do you make your own kites? I bet you did once, although perhaps not recently. The thing about making a kite is that they don't always fly all that well. Building a kite is a must for learning that things don't always go as we'd like. You are maybe thinking, "well, um, I think we have a lot of that already!" But really, you know, we don't have a lot of that. We have a lot of 'believe in yourself' and a lot of 'try, try again' and a passel of the 'drive to succeed.' But, what of the 'patience of failing?' What of 'doomed but completed?'
The kite and making it are a study in a kind of poetry of metaphor and potential, and whether it soars or stumbles, the making is a fine time.
Begin by making one without any instruction at all- use whatever you have. Drinking straws, chopsticks, twigs, reeds and plastic wrap, old bags, silk chiffon, tissue paper. Then maybe get a book, from the library. You are doing all this with a Someone Else, mind. If you are very lucky, your Someone Else is younger and less experienced in making kites, and you are a Paragon of Patience and Resource.
PS
Perhaps some time has passed, and you have learned now that everything 'flies' if you run fast enough with your string: a wonderful thing to discover! Should you find yourself without even the drive to search your kitchen drawer for straws, you could click over this way, and get yourself a kit.
