A Super-Duper New Kite

I love kites.  I don't know why exactly.  There is something I find exhilarating in being connected to an object soaring on the breeze so high above.  It fills me with a child-like glee.  I probably own more kites than a single person needs, but I like to have options and I like my friends to be able to join me. 

Well, everything I thought I knew about kites before is over.  I have reached a whole new playing field.  The parafoil kite.  (Which Matt got me for Christmas.)  (and soon I will have to get him one of his own so that I don't have to share!)

Matt really wanted a photo of the moon and the kite, and then a plane flew by so we got all three.

Oh.  My.  Goodness.  Can you say awesome?!  It is a two line kite so you can actually steer it and swoop it and make it do tricks.  I was willing to brave nearly freezing temperatures (with the wind and all) in order to fly it.  I couldn't possibly wait for warmer weather!  Thankfully the weather has cooperated and has been unseasonably warm (relatively speaking of course).  Thus I've already gotten three good opportunities for flying in the middle of winter.  Including, as a lovely surprise, yesterday afternoon when my boss decided we could close the library early and Matt happened to have the day off.  Yesterday was glorious.  I kept having to take my poofy winter coat off.

Phipps Park is great for flying.  It is just about always windy there.  And beautiful too.

I'd gotten the chance to fly a parafoil kite at the Love Your Mother Earth Festival this summer.  I was to shy to go ask the woman if she'd let me fly it, but Matt knows me well (and knew that I really did want to try it, despite what I said) and so he just moseyed up to her and started chatting.  She offered it to us without our even asking.  From the moment I took the handles I felt a bond.  A force.  A connection.  This kite is an experience.  It isn't just holding the end of the string.  It is steering the air currents.  Riding the wind. 

After LYMEF I looked them up online to see about getting myself one, but I am just no good at spending money on "unnecessary" stuff like that so I didn't get one.  And I sort of forgot about all about it.  But, Matt didn't.  (Hooray!)

Oh.  My.  Goodness.  I am giddy when flying it.  My teeth hurt from smiling into the cold wind.

Matt watches me fly it and is so impressed at how long I can go in a flight, how I can swoop down to touch the ground and come back up again.  Matt crashes every couple minutes (though he is getting better).  I tell him that I can't explain it, but these kites and I have a special connection, a kindred spirit.  (Which probably sounds silly, so maybe I should say the wind and I have a special connection that I can now tap in to more easily, which sounds better, I think.)  It just feel so natural, like the kite and I are moving as one (wow, that sounds silly, too).

Today it is windy and I am kicking myself for not bringing it along to fly at lunch, oh well, blogging will just have to do!  : )