Letting Go Of The String

Michael laid his hand on my heart.


"Feels like something's shifted in here," he said.


And up came the summer of the lost kite.


We were on Martha's Vineyard, beloved island.
Set up at State Beach where the water is calm and the Cape is across the way. Fat, white ferries passing by. 


The kite was bright yellow with a red dragon. 


Michael had tied it to a beach chair, the handle and string wrapped around the aluminum, holding fast. The wind was good. The kite was way up, flying high. We were looking up, admiring the yellow against blue sky when a gust whipped up, and it unraveled, the kite handle skidding and bouncing across the sand, the kite still high in the sky.


"Catch it, oh no!" I cried out.
"Daddy, get the kite,"Claire called out.


Michael ran, as if saving a drowning child, and dove into the water after the kite. He reached for the handle, string taut, kite full of air. 


It would not be caught.


We watched it, sad at first, flying over the morning water, kite high in the sky, a splash of yellow and red, the handle a skipping stone across the water. 


"I almost got it," Michael said.
"You were amazing, " Claire and I said.
Then "It's okay."


We watched the yellow kite, flying across the morning water, high in the sky, a splash of yellow and red.


The kite got away. 


This morning with my husband's hand over my heart, I felt the perfection of the lost kite, the cut-looseness, the release in letting it fly away, the relief in dropping the sad, the shift, letting go of the string, 


the flying.