The Weight of the Wind

I keep a small, frayed piece of twine in my desk drawer, a remnant from a kite my father built for me when the summers felt infinite. It is coarse against my skin, still holding the faint, dusty scent of the field where we ran until our lungs burned and the sky seemed to pull us upward. We spend so much of our lives tethered to the solid earth, to the heavy expectations of work and the slow accumulation of years, that we forget the lightness we are capable of. To let something go—to release the string and watch a shape dance against the vastness of the clouds—is a terrifying act of trust. We are always balancing between the desire to hold on tight and the desperate need to see how far our own spirit might travel if we simply gave it enough room to breathe. Is it the kite that finds the horizon, or is it the horizon that finally calls the kite home?

Ryszard Wierzbicki has captured this delicate tension in his beautiful image titled Two Kites and the Horizon. It reminds me that even when we are anchored to the shore, our gaze is meant to wander toward the open sky. Does this view make you feel anchored, or does it make you want to let go?