The Weight of the String

It is 3:14 am. The house is holding its breath, and I am thinking about the things we teach children to hold onto. We give them strings, ribbons, and promises, telling them that if they just keep a firm grip, they can make something dance against the sky. We tell them that distance is a thing to be conquered, not a thing to be feared. But we never tell them what happens when the wind changes, or when the string eventually snaps. We never tell them that the act of letting go is often the only way to see where the wind truly wants to take us. We are all just tethered to something, hoping that if we pull hard enough, we will finally be lifted off the ground. But the ground is heavy, and the sky is indifferent. Is it better to hold on until your knuckles turn white, or to watch the thing you love disappear into the clouds?

Derya Yazar Atasever has captured this delicate tension in the image titled How to Fly a Kite. Does the string connect them to the sky, or does it simply remind them of how far away the horizon really is?