Luckily, my wife weeded out my stupidity in her translation. "I love it.," he says. "I had a serious neck injury a few years ago. I couldn't move it at all. I got the idea of flying kites from a friend at work. We make airplanes, you see. I have to look up and move my neck a lot and after a while I finally got better." When asked if he has profound thoughts or tries to shake hands with the wind, he laughs "No. It just makes me happy."
That day I saw entanglements smoothed over with laughter, I spoke to a father and son who agreed that flying kites, "Is fun and we can spend time together." And I saw that what you get out of it seems to be what you need. I really can't think of a better reason than that. I saw that as the day grew on and the children disappeared, older men and women found conversation or perhaps a little high altitude competition to connect them with their fellow man, as a peaceful feeling seemed to shut out the rest of the world. Next week I'm off to the Temple of Heaven.
It's often said that eating Beijing duck in Beijing is something you should do before you die. I've done it, eaten the duck I mean, I try to steer clear of dying, and I have never felt as if my life were more complete because I was clogging my arteries with duck fat; but flying a kite as the Temple of Heaven sits gloriously in the sun nearby, well, there is a certain magic to that. As I get older, I begin to pay close attention to each precious moment in life. Little things don't bother me as much as they used to, but at the same time, little moments can seem to mean much more than things that seemed huge when I was young. Trying to feel the wind as it connects and affects, and is affected by everything, feeling the pull of some golden spiral that goes far deeper than mathematics, helps us understand that a connection as tenuous as man and kite through silken line somehow connects us with something more. It's moments like these that stretch on, suddenly making us feel as if skateboards and Metroid, and school and work, debt and getting older are all silly, and that standing in a field, holding a piece of string can indeed hold something magical once more.
(China Pictorial June 10, 2009)
