I believe I can fly

A gust of wind swiped away the pile of reddish yellow maple leaves. I was sitting on a bench near the lake ‘Placida’, looking through the ripples on the surface of water. The surrounding was so peaceful and serene. Well, a little too peaceful for me, I thought to myself. Suddenly, the blurry shadow of my face on the water surface became totally different from what I looked like. It appeared as a small, smiling, young and innocent face. It, actually, was the face I used to be familiar with. It was me when I was 8.

A thought came to my mind. Man! I am too old to be like that. I have been through many things in my life; ups and downs. I came to know many important things in life at the expense of many precious things. In all these years, my grandfather passed away, my family moved to the Netherlands and I am now studying in America, alone. I, again, looked at the image on the surface of water. I smiled at the boy smiling at me through the water.

I was told that when I was born it had been raining the whole day. Quite the opposite to the weather outside, I was delivered peacefully. I was so quiet that I even surprised and worried my parents. I didn’t cry for most of the time. My parents thought that I was too passive at first. But I was never hesitant to surprise anyone. When I turned five and started my primary school, I turned out to be a monkey. (It has been assumed that humans are decedents of monkey, so I thought it was not very wrong for me to show off my primitive human nature.) I climbed almost all trees around my house. I played all sorts of play ever known to us at that time. There was no internet; there was no play-station; there was no computer game. But I was pretty sure it was so much fun. I still remember playing with tops and flying kites. I still think flying kites is the most fascinating and interesting of all games.

I still remember the set of rules to play with tops. Children used to drew a circle, with a radius of about 2 feet, on the ground. Then, children tried to rotate the tops as quickly as they could. The last one had to put his/her top in the middle of the circle. The others tried to push it away from the circle without getting their tops stuck in the circle. Once the tops are in the circle, no one is allowed to touch his/her top. This is the most important rule, I guess. Anyone who can get the top out of the circle, without getting it stuck in the circle is the winner of the game. He is the hero! I still remember I wanted to be a hero so much that I practiced day and night rotating the top.

Later, my interest changed from the ground to the sky. It was because of my grandfather. One day, he brought me a book about air-planes. Although I couldn’t read well, I was fascinated by the photos and pictures inside the books. Yes, the sky captured my imagination, and I really wanted to fly. But how? I was looking at the birds, and thought to myself. If I had wings, I would be able to fly. So I made wings with plastic bags and glued them to my arms. I was very happy for getting such a marvelous pair of wings on my arms. Then I tried to flip the wings like birds. Well, I couldn’t lift myself a single inch, however hard I flipped. However hard I visualized myself flying, I was still on the ground. So, finally I changed my strategy. Instead of flipping the wings, I tried to glide from the table. I tried to climb up the high table and jump. Finally, I was able to be in the air. I still remember the joy I felt for my accomplishments. But my gliding was not long-lived. The table was pretty high for my age, and my legs started to hurt after a several glides. So, I stopped jumping, and looked for new solutions. I went outside of the house and looking at the sky, and thinking how I could fly. Suddenly, I saw colorful flying things in the sky. The kites! Yes, that’s it, I told to myself. Finally, even though I could not fly myself, I could fly something with my hand.

In fact, flying a kite has never been so easy; there were times that I could fly it without much difficulty, but there were times that I couldn’t even lift it. In fact, flying a kite follows the laws of aerodynamics. Well, at that time, I was too young to know all this stuff. However, flying a kite taught me an important lesson; one has to go against the wind to go up. Without wind, one cannot fly a kite. In face of obstacles, this important lesson always reminds me not to give up, and to go against the wind.

Suddenly, a gentle touch of a maple leaf on my back woke me up and sent me back to the present. I looked around the college campus, and sighed. I was going to leave this place soon too. I was graduating. I was not still sure what lies ahead of me. But one thing is for sure, I thought. There will be the wind, and I have to go against the wind to go up. Looking up the sky, I stood up slowly, saying to myself, ‘I believe I can fly.’

Posted in: Childhood,Memory,Thoughts