(Click to hear an amazing narration)
Beauty lies just below the surface.
Day in and day out, I go through the motions of the day. Get up. Shower. Go to work. Leave work. Come home. Eat dinner. Get lost in the fog of evening. Go to bed. It’s the same every day…almost.
I don’t remember anything until light began to brighten my bedroom. Last night was the first mild night of the year, and I had left all of the windows open. Being on the second floor, above the ground world, I had a palatial seat for the morning symphony.
I first noticed it before the sun. From my comfortable bed, I heard the call of the neighborhood peacock followed by the morning Fed-Ex jet take-off at 6:28am on its way to
I gradually became more awake and kept my eyes closed, just listening as more and more birds joined in. There were tenors, sopranos, and baritones; each with distinctive pleadings. While there was a frantic buzz from some, other birds were simply joyous, welcoming the growing light, the new day.
It occurred to me as I lay there that these sounds existed in a dimension I had never considered before. It seemed that each distinct call was layered onto other calls behind or below it. A percussive backdrop of the sound was cemented by the increasing drone of cars and trucks. A rich, mental sound file was forming in my mind; one complex with a painter’s eye for depth and clarity; yet one that was so fragile.
More thoughts and revelations passed through me as I lay there in silence listening to the morning grow. It struck me that I never hear the birds or any of the sounds I was experiencing during the light of day, except for the occasional birdcall, siren, train, or plane. It’s as if some sort of thick veil is placed over top of it all once the sun comes up. I think maybe all the sounds of the earth, mechanized and natural, are cancelled out by every other sound, both mechanized and natural, in the heavy air of the day. Perhaps, I thought, we are all, fowl and beast, like land whales, calling out but unable to hear the reply thanks to the disturbed, mixed-up air.
I wanted to stay in that place much longer, but I felt a duty to join the chorus and mix up some air.
Later in the day, I had another timeless moment of clarity. I was driving down a two-lane road not far from my parents’ house when I happened to catch a glimpse of a tattered kite tangled in a tree beside the road. It occurred to me then that I hadn’t noticed any tangled kites for some time. In fact, I hadn’t noticed any kites captured by trees or power lines for years. I think that’s because kids aren’t flying kites any more, or maybe because I stopped looking. I suppose some kids do visit kite demonstrations put on by community groups at local parks, but I can’t recall actually seeing any kids out in their backyards trying to get a kite launched.
When I was a kid, flying a kite was something that I looked forward to immensely. In our basement, carefully hung on the walls, were several kites. We usually got Hi-Fliers, the 10-cent paper kites with wooden crosspieces. These were functional, but not glitzy kites. Carefully before launching them into the wind, you had to connect the kite string to the bridle which is a piece of string that connected from the top to the bottom of the kite. If you connected too high on the bridle, the kite would sit up like a butler at attention and stay on the ground. If you tied off too low, the kite would wobble out of control the moment it launched. Through trial and error, a tail generally needed to be added to stabilize the kite. I’m not sure of the aeronautic principle behind the tail, but I learned that stiff winds require longer tails. We usually crafted our kite tails from strips torn from old sheets.
A wind in the spring always meant that my brothers, sisters, neighborhood kids, and I would grab the kites and head out into the backyard. We didn’t have a large backyard, but we had just enough space to get a good running launch of our paper kites in a good breeze. Once a kite got into the air, there were three options. The first was to see how high you could make the kite go. Many times, we’d send someone back into the house to get surplus rolls and quickly add them onto our spool of string.
Option two hinged on having a highflying kite. Once the kite was established high in the sky, we’d begin writing messages to the kite. To write a successful message to the kite, you had to get a small index sized piece of paper, round or square. Next you had to punch a hole in the middle and create a slit from the hole to the edge of the paper. After writing the message, all you had to do was to slip the message onto the string that reaches upward to the kite. Without fail, the message would slowly begin to push its way up to the kite. I never knew who read the messages for the kite.
The third game was a dangerous form of kite/airplane chicken. Since twin prop Piedmont airplanes would rumble overhead every half hour or so, the goal of the game was to fly a kite high enough to kiss one of the Piedmont airplanes as they made final runway approach directly above our house. We were very close to the airport, so the planes were not very high. I recall one time when some neighborhood kids were flying in our backyard along with my brothers, sisters, and me. The kite was nothing more than a speck in the sky when a Piedmont YS-11 came rumbling home. The next thing we knew, we were chasing the kite across fields and neighborhoods as it slowly descended having its lifeline snapped by an oblivious wing. I think that intentionally flying a kite into airplane flight paths is a felony offense. Back then, I just thought it was a cool thing to do.
You just don’t see kids flying kites anymore. You also can’t hear the birds after the sun comes up. Whales are getting lost in the ocean looking for mates.
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