Pigs Fly

 

There's nothing like flying a kite.

I don't know why, but it's like flying vicariously or something.  I love it so much and it doesn't get old, no matter how many years go by.  And it seems that everyone in my family loves to fly kites too. My beautiful sister-in-law requested a kite flying day for her birthday.  Yesterday, in fact, (when this photo was taken), we spent the early evening sending our kites into the heavens (they did not always stay there) and watched them dance in the wind (until they crashed down and I spent an hour untangling the mess) and laughed and danced with them.

 

I think it's because for a minute or two, we feel our smallness in the vastness of the sky and we feel like for a moment we've harnessed the wind and we're part of it all.

Maybe my wishful thinking?

Probably, but hey, I'm trying to verbalize joy and it's an elusive thing--that's what pictures are for right?  So you tell me . . . why do we love flying kites?  or maybe it doesn't matter.  It's just a fact.  

Just like reading a good book (reading a bad book is the worst form of torture ever invented).  It's so full of joy that words (oddly enough) don't quite cover it.

Tonight I was quite anti-social and after a lovely visit with a few friends and my beautiful niece and her darling boyfriend (and finally successfully making a batch of caramel sauce--hallelujah!), I slipped off to my sunlit warm room (my most favoritest place ever) and finished yet another book.  Oh my heavens to betsy--I forgot what a joy it is to read a masterpiece.  I just finished it like maybe ten minutes ago and I'm still reeling from it.  It's a YA book, a second in a four part series, and honestly, I want to go to Ohio and kiss the author on the cheek and hug her and tell her THANK YOU! because she gets writing and more than that, she gets, the human heart.  And that, according to Faulkner, is what writing is all about anyways.

What book, you ask?

The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner. 

It's The Theif series and each book is AMAZING and most of all wise.  I love the wise part. 

I have this degree, as you know, in creative writing.  My emphasis, which you might not know, is in YA lit.  I actually wrote a book which I still haven't looked at--yet, but I will again.  Maybe.  But what I learned from my years of reading and research, is the most beautiful thing about writing YA is to give hope with truth and honesty.  One of my favorite teachers, Susan Howe, told us all so seriously we thought she might cry, that the most challenging thing we will ever face is to write something true that uplifts and encourages and inspires the heart.  I hear her voice very time I sit down to write my own stories and in each word I write, I think, is this honest?  Is this true? and can it possibly ease a pain someone feels?

Which is why I LOVE The Queen of Attolia.  It's about war and horror and loss and love.  She doesn't sugar coat anything, but she gives us hope--she encourages us all to dream big and despite handicaps and bumps in the road (sometimes--chasms to cross), we should push on and fight.  There is this phrase she uses over and over again, "Where there is life, there is hope," that is so true.  Oh I want to tell you the whole story . . . but I can't because you HAVE TO READ this book (after you read The Theif  of course).  Suffice to to say, there is a Queen and she may or may not be good, and there is a theif and he may or may not be broken and somehow . . . well, you'll have to read it to find out.

But back to the phrase, where there is life, there is hope . . . do you believe this?

I do.

I think sometimes we forget this.  

I forget it when I look at my silly children and their silly choices and think (with good reasoning),  Bless me to be kind to bums on the street, because MY SON is going to be one of them! With these grades, there is only one place for him for REALS! (Another reason I love missions so much . . . no grades!!).

No lie.  True thought.  

Totally skipped that he was alive and so there was hope--went straight to there is no righting this ship you are going to end up a bum on the street and that is a fact

And sometimes, as over emotional mamas, you do that.

But deep down, somewhere, I do believe where there is life there is hope.

I can't even tell you how many times I've been forgotten this.  I've had bad relationships for YEARS and I mean maybe even decades where I'd say, Oh, they'll talk to me again when PIGS FLY or they are going to be mad at me until the FAT LADY SING (yes, I'm quite enamored with colloquial sayings, just am).  And pigs do not fly and the opera singers are thin now.  So it is NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN.

But guess what?

Bridges, they mend and get rebuilt, sometimes without any effort on my part, forgiveness is given and relationships bloom again.  Just by time (and I think a bit of Grace) and letting go and love.  That thing, LOVE, it's way WAY more powerful than any of us realize.

And I'm here to tell you, PIGS FLY.  I've seen them.  And beautiful FAT LADIES sing the most beautiful songs of forgiveness you'll ever hear.  

Miracles happen.  

Every day.

Because, where there is life, there is hope.

And there is YEARS of life left in almost all of us. 

So don't give up.  Go fly kites.  Feel the tug of the wind and the possibility of the impossible flight.  Find what gives you joy and don't be afraid of the future.  It will unfold as it should and will undoubtedly bring all sorts of surprises (some not so good, some unspeakably beautiful) but always, tucked in there will be a bit of magic and miracles.