The Thrill of the Wind and Happiness from the Oldest of Friends

Saturday, April 15, 2006

The daffodils were sweet, the night was warm and dark, and the stars were pale – another night at the coffee house. Saturday was even better. The skies were such that the clouds hid the sun at perfect angles where only enough light was given to bring Collette back to the days of castles and forests of red and green-leafed trees, small winds, singing of angels from the nunnery in the hills, and other things…

Saturday was beautiful and it was out for kite-flying that day. And as they arrived at the house, Collette took on Frances and Linnea for some badminton. She heard the familiar cry of Bumble as she stepped out into the light rain of the back patio.

“Don’t worry about him anymore,” Linnea said. “He’s good now. Bumble became a Christian.”

“Oh, really, eh? And how did he become a Christian?” Collette asked, laughing.

“I told him how to become a Christian.”

“And what did he say?”

“He said, Buzz,” Linnea grinned happily, swinging the badminton raquet over her shoulder.

And the rain was perfect. Like a mist, but still rain, and light.

As the rain began to draw to a close, blue was seen over the horizon and they headed out: OLeif, Collette, Joe, Ben-Hur, Wallace, Curly, Rose, Frances, and Linnea. Out towards Augusta on the great old rock hill (the largest clean-up site in America) – and there was wind – beautiful wind. And there in the violet, white and blue, they flew the kites for hours. It was a satisfying thing to watch them soar out beyond the fields and forests. They managed to send Linnea’s kite out about two thousand feet into the wild blue yonder. And after they had constructed a sort of parachute pouch out of Rose’s Elmo kite, they send the following note inside and shimmied it up the string towards the kite itself for when they would let go of the kite:

“Yes, we can see you… from the hill.

Beware… your day has come.

Signed, The Mafia”

And as Collette and Linnea scoured the rocks for crystals and smashed fossilized organisms out of the talc rocks, Rose took pictures. Collette and Rose both hopped down all the way to the field to retrieve one of the kites when it had snapped away. It was a good jog and a great open field.

Linnea also had a mishap with a rock and cut her toe, bleeding red over her sandal. She took some of the blood and smeared it on a rock, hoping it would stay there forever as a mark that she had been there. Rose next took a spill chasing Frances, and smashed into the gravel path, bleeding in the knee through her jeans and scraping up her elbow a good bit.

And then came the grand moment of letting the kite loose into the wind to land where it might. The final hurrah was not so grand, however, for as OLeif threw it out into the wind, the small rock to which it was tied for stabilizing, hit the ground and rolled along until the string was snapped and the kite soared away. The end of the string was then caught amongst the grasses far below in the fields, not yet cleaned for radio active material. That mattered little, however, and OLeif, Wally, and Curly took off down the great mound to see about its detachment while the rest headed back to the cars. Ben-Hur drove Frances over to check out the army site and returned shortly after the boys got back with a set of coyote bones from the woods. The kite had managed to escape them and yet still soared in the blue, its end attached to some illusive anchor.

Pizza Street followed after dropping off Frances and Linnea – and some running around in the dusk at the old Lyon’s Park, blowing of dandelion clocks in each other’s faces, swinging, Curly holding fuzzy bunny ear leaves on the sides of his head and hopping like a bunny, walking about, and relaxing in the warmish cool breezes of the evening.

And then Diana gave Collette a ring. Collette had been waiting for the phone call and took it while they were driving Wally and Curly back to the Silverspoons. And an hour later she had the whole synopsis. Amazingly, as Diana was going through the detailed version, Collette was taken immediately back nearly four years before – seventeen, when she and OLeif had first spoken about the same thing. It was amazing just how similar their experiences and thoughts were each in their different circumstances. And while Diana and Collette talked, OLeif ate black licorice from a glass bowl and smoked his pipe while reading of L’Abri over a glass of ginger ale.

“Say hi to OLeif for me,” Diana said, at the end. “Tell him I’ll be expecting another glass of whiskey this summer.” She laughed.

And Collette was more than happy for her best friend that fine warm evening of Easter eve.