So that the top entry on this blog isn't only sad, I want to include a sweeter moment:
As Alice's birthday on March 26 was approaching, I wasn't sure what I would do with myself that day. How could I tolerate the fact that for every year of my life this was the day we celebrated Alice's birth, and now she wasn't with us?
Peter offered to take the day off so that we could do something that Alice would have liked. A part of me did want to celebrate that Alice was born, so after careful thought, I asked Peter to meet me at Toys R Us in Times Square at 11:00 a.m.
After asking a few clerks where the kites were, we found a small assortment of colorful kites. I was deciding between the 4-foot kite with bright blocks of colors for $5 or the similarly patterned 8-foot kite for $10, when I stumbled upon The One.
It was a Monarch Butterfly Kite 48". Actually it wasn't an obvious choice at first, because I was really happy with the good value the $5 kite represented. When I thought about it, however, of course we were going to buy this one, it was just like Alice's. The price wasn't listed anywhere, so, happy that Alice would approve of our selection we went to the checkout counter.
Quick ring through the scanner, and... $17.99. What?! I can't--wait, oh yes I can--believe that Alice would choose the most expensive kite. The word frivolous came to mind, yet so did playful, pretty, and perfect. So we bought our appropriately-for-Alice-priced kite and made our way to Central Park. Here's the packaging:
The lesson of the day was: it's hard to fly a kite in Manhattan. Were Peter and I the last ones to find this out? We went to all the open fields in the lower region of the park, and they were all closed off to protect the grass during the colder days.
Not to be easily defeated, we found a small, open dirt field full of activity: a school of 8-year olds in a game of kickball, a father and son kicking a soccer ball, a couple of dog walkers, and a steady stream of tourists all vying for space in the confined area. Never mind the ample trees and plenty of light posts bordering the space to make flying a kite extra challenging.
We opened the packaging, assembled the kite, and Peter held it while I lengthened the string for a proper launch.
[continued 9/10/2016]
Peter threw his arms up, casting the butterfly into the air, and I ran. But in the small field I didn't get far before hitting a tangle of trees. We tried again, but with buildings all around us, no wind blew for the kite to catch. Dejected, we went home.
The pain of not getting what I wanted felt familiar. But I needed Alice's kite to soar. On the train uptown I thought of other open spaces we'd try next time.
As Alice's birthday on March 26 was approaching, I wasn't sure what I would do with myself that day. How could I tolerate the fact that for every year of my life this was the day we celebrated Alice's birth, and now she wasn't with us?
Peter offered to take the day off so that we could do something that Alice would have liked. A part of me did want to celebrate that Alice was born, so after careful thought, I asked Peter to meet me at Toys R Us in Times Square at 11:00 a.m.
After asking a few clerks where the kites were, we found a small assortment of colorful kites. I was deciding between the 4-foot kite with bright blocks of colors for $5 or the similarly patterned 8-foot kite for $10, when I stumbled upon The One.
It was a Monarch Butterfly Kite 48". Actually it wasn't an obvious choice at first, because I was really happy with the good value the $5 kite represented. When I thought about it, however, of course we were going to buy this one, it was just like Alice's. The price wasn't listed anywhere, so, happy that Alice would approve of our selection we went to the checkout counter.
Quick ring through the scanner, and... $17.99. What?! I can't--wait, oh yes I can--believe that Alice would choose the most expensive kite. The word frivolous came to mind, yet so did playful, pretty, and perfect. So we bought our appropriately-for-Alice-priced kite and made our way to Central Park. Here's the packaging:
The lesson of the day was: it's hard to fly a kite in Manhattan. Were Peter and I the last ones to find this out? We went to all the open fields in the lower region of the park, and they were all closed off to protect the grass during the colder days.Not to be easily defeated, we found a small, open dirt field full of activity: a school of 8-year olds in a game of kickball, a father and son kicking a soccer ball, a couple of dog walkers, and a steady stream of tourists all vying for space in the confined area. Never mind the ample trees and plenty of light posts bordering the space to make flying a kite extra challenging.
We opened the packaging, assembled the kite, and Peter held it while I lengthened the string for a proper launch.
[continued 9/10/2016]
Peter threw his arms up, casting the butterfly into the air, and I ran. But in the small field I didn't get far before hitting a tangle of trees. We tried again, but with buildings all around us, no wind blew for the kite to catch. Dejected, we went home.
The pain of not getting what I wanted felt familiar. But I needed Alice's kite to soar. On the train uptown I thought of other open spaces we'd try next time.
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