Susan Senator

With your feet on the ground you’re a bird in flight
With your fist holding tight to the string of your kite.

–Mary Poppins

The rain did stop and because it’s May, when the sun is out, it is so out. Intense enough for tanning (yeah I know, I know, not good for me, shut up).
So then Ned said, “Picnic somewhere?” and I immediately agreed, but we realized it was just a little too windy. So I said, “How about we fly kites?” We haven’t done that too much en famille, though we seem to get kites from people all the time. We gathered up two pink parafoils and a Spongebob Cheapkite and headed off for Larz Anderson Park, a huge former robber baron estate in our town, which has a large hill (and a view of Boston).

Took a while to get the hang of it; the wind was erratic. Ben said, “Stupid wind,” and I started singing, Idiot Wind, of course. I was exhiliarated by the wide open field we were standing on, and I found I could still do a cartwheel. I think Nat felt the same, because occasionally he would start leaping and sprinting like a wild colt. Benj thought he discovered a whole new species of spider; it was about an inch long, chubby, furry, and had blue in it! We took some pictures of it and kind of harrassed it until suddenly it reared up to of its legs (or fronted up?) and skittered away.

I had a feeling Nat would like flying kites because of how much he loves the movie Mary Poppins. The very last scene is “Let’s Go Fly a Kite.” But the thing I forgot about was just how much Nat loves string! String was the very first object that gave him obvious joy.

He was delighted to be able to twirl and unfurl string to his heart’s content, and watch what the kite did in response.