The Red Kite

I had another flying dream last night.  I was alone in a vast emerald field on top of a sharply sloping hill. A church steeple jabbed at the sky above the treetops. The ground around me was studded with hundreds of mole hills and looked like it had a bad case of acne. The thought of moles had always made me shudder. Hundreds of little subterranean miners, trapped in the ground, never seeing light or experiencing the infinite freedom of open sky.

In the time measurement of dreams, the landscape began to alter, like a slideshow in slow motion. When I turned my head, I was at Penygadair, the summit of Cadair Idris. In another lifetime, I’d climbed the beautiful Welsh mountain with my parents on a hiking trip. My father had told me that there was magic in these mountains. According to legend passed down from his ancestors, if you stood on the edge of the cliff at the pinnacle and leaned into the wind, your human form would transform into the bird that ruled the mountains. His grandfather had called it chwedl y barcud coch – The Legend of the Red Kite.  As a ten-year-old, I’d fallen in love with this idea, and a yearning I could never quite define had filled my heart.

Then, as is the nature of dreams, allowing only glimpses and tastes at best, I was back in the pockmarked field.  Skeletal ash trees stood like stern sentinels lining the field’s perimeter. At the end was a giant oak that lay prostrate like a capsized ship. Its enormous, bulbous snake-like root system was a tangle of earth and stones that looked like severed human limbs. Where it once stood was a gaping hole. Its top branches kissed the earth like a pitiful drunk with his face in the gutter.  The ash tree soldiers stood strong and steady in judgement alongside their horizontal brother.

“Well, well, well. Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine,” said the fallen oak tree, “Are you sure you want to do this? You know what happened last time.”

I wasn’t sure if I was sure about anything. But I said I was.

“Well, here’s looking at you kid. But that’s what you say every time. We think your promises don’t amount to a hill of beans in these crazy dreams.”

I told the tree not to be a smart ass, and to drop the bad Humphrey Bogart imitation.

“Did I ever tell you how I got this way?”

Before I could answer, it said, “Well I’m gonna tell you anyway. Forewarned is forearmed as they say. And speaking of arms, I don’t think those spindly branches hanging off your skinny trunk will cut the mustard. Wings is what you need. Flying is lift versus weight, thrust versus drag. It’s all about the Bernoulli Effect. Know what I’m saying? Anyway I digress.”

I wondered how the tree knew so much about aerodynamics.

“The red kite did this to me.”

I laughed out loud and told the tree there was no way a bird could have caused his sorry ass to topple over like that. I countered that it was more than likely old age, or root rot or something.

“Okay, know-it-all, check out my roots – as is obvious, they’re embarrassingly available for all the world to see, and I can assure you there is not one spot of rot. And if you care to count my rings, you’ll find that I’m not that old either. I’m telling you, the kite did it.”

A steady drip of impatience and longing began its intravenous journey through my senses. I wanted to run headlong into the wind and let it pick me up and carry me into the sky. I wanted to join the ravens and finches, and the pigeon couple that were already partying in the upper atmosphere. I imagined myself circling with them, diving and soaring, floating and plummeting.  The ache was building inside me like an approaching climax. I wanted release. I wanted to get high. The tree read my thoughts.

“Yeah well, it’s not as simple as that, young Skywalker. In order to embark on such an experience, you first need instruction. You can’t just raise your arms and start flapping. You need to believe – I mean really believe in chwedl y barcud coch. Otherwise you’ll end up like me.  I know what you’re going through because I wanted it too, just like you.  I wanted it so badly. But …well, I didn’t believe hard enough.”

I thought it ludicrous that a tree would want to fly. Some things are meant to stay in the ground. Like moles. And tree roots. And I told the tree this.

“True,” said the tree, “But there’s nothing wrong with dreaming. We’re not so different, you and I. The very idea of not being tethered to the ground for all eternity is a pretty good dream to have. Right?”

I asked why I had to wait for the red kite. Why couldn’t one of those ravens or a pigeon show me what to do? A bird is a bird. They all fly the same way, right? The tree rustled its admonishment, shushing me.

“I’d shut my pie hole if I was you. Saying stuff like that can get you into more trouble than you ever want to be in. Look. The red kite rules these parts, and parts beyond. He has hunting rights, roosting rights, and he decides who flies this territory and who doesn’t. These guys came back from the brink you know! The kites could’ve ended up like the phoenix, but they didn’t. That makes them the most powerful and exalted of all the accipitridae. They’re bird royalty. You go taking things into your own hands, and you’ll soon find out that there are consequences. I should know.”

I asked the tree how long I’d have to wait for the red kite. After all, this dream was going to be over soon, and I didn’t want it to finish without a happy ending.

“The red kite will only come when he knows you’re one hundred percent committed to this, and when you look at previous endeavours, your track record isn’t good.”

The tree was indeed correct. In the past, I’d launched myself from extraordinary heights, like the top of the Brooklyn Bridge, The White Cliffs of Dover, the Grand Canyon, The Hoover Dam and The Eiffel Tower, just to name a few. It had started off okay each time, but the rush had never continued past the length of a sigh.

Each experience had given me a gust of ecstasy greater than any high you could imagine, but I could never make it last. The exhilaration always ended almost as soon as it had begun, fluttering to inevitable disappointment.  I wanted to be in control. To be swept up in plumes of soft, cushioning air and to drift high above the ocean, or the city rooftops, or rolling cliffs. I wanted to become one with the ether for as long as…well as long as forever.  Once again, the tree answered my thoughts.

“It’s because you didn’t truly believe. You always held back. Sure, you wanted it bad, but not bad enough to give yourself wholly and completely.  And not just your body either. You humans have this thing called a soul. It’s what gives you limitless courage. It’s the most precious thing you have and it makes you able to achieve the impossible – as long as you’re willing to give it up. You came close…once.  The church bell tower – remember?”

I didn’t like where this was headed, and I told the tree.

“Yeah, well sorry to bring it up, but it had to be said. Look, I feel your pain. But hey, If you could just muster as much courage as that time, and then take it one tiny step further, I think you’ll own your space, and get to fly whenever you want, for as long as you want.  ‘The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.’ J.M Barrie wrote that.  And that’s exactly what happened to me. I had a whole trunk full of doubt.”

I told the tree I’d waited long enough. I would do this without the red kite, and I gave it zero time for rebuttal.

I opened my arms wide and prepared to hurl myself forward. The scream began at the bottom of my heart and permeated the top of my lungs. I was ready to believe – to give up my soul. Even more ready than that day twenty years earlier at the top of the church bell tower.  I didn’t know about believing then. But I didn’t know about the impossible either. A new plastic kite became my wings, and fear was a visitor I was yet to meet.

Then I was back on the cliff at the top of Cadair Idris. It was time for the mountain to show me its magic. I stood on the precipice and leaned into the wind. An exhilarating blast of joy swept me upward and upward like a feather. I turned my head to the left, then the right. In place of my arms, was a pair of magnificent wings, easily spanning five feet. They were covered in splendid shiny feathers, a brilliant chestnut red, made even more handsome with interwoven crescents of dazzling white. I was delirious with joy. Each time I dipped and tilted them, I was able to change direction and altitude and speed.  I wasn’t just flying, I’d become part of the stratosphere. I’d become the Red Kite.

Gentle breezes licked me all over as I dipped and soared in perfect choreography with passing ravens and hawks. In the distance I could see cloudless blue skies above the primeval Snowdonia ranges and the majestic mountains of Rhinog. I followed their stunning symmetry for miles, riding the wind. Its guiding whisper helped me to glide when I needed to, soar when I wanted to and rest when the time was right.

Ultimate, exquisite freedom was mine at last. I wished so hard that it became a prayer…a desperate plea from the depths of my soul that this was not a dream.

But then as I prayed, it occurred to me that by the very act of being able to wish and pray – my soul still belonged to me. A feeling of profound grief and disappointment washed over me, and in the next moment I was back in the pockmarked field with the fallen tree.

The Red Kite was perched on a knot hole, half way across the tree’s ruined body. His wings were extended in full span, as mine had been moments earlier, only mine were just arms again. His beautiful hooked beak gleamed in the afternoon sun and his iridescent amber eyes were fixed on mine.

“Judy, Judy, Judy”, said the tree in an English accent that sounded like Cary Grant, “Back so soon?”

With my eyes still locked on the red kite, I told the tree that my name isn’t Judy.

“I know, I know but I thought, hey, it’s a segue-way too good to waste. Look, I’m sorry it had to end like this. The Red Kite says to tell you that only angels can fly. But then I think you already know that”.

With that, the majestic bird flapped his voluminous wings, creating a stream of turbulence and colour and warmth as he soared skyward. I watched him grow smaller and smaller until he vanished, like a dying breath.

Then I was back in my bedroom, savouring the delicious millisecond, before my eyes opened, and the blissful mist of sleep evaporated. That divine moment before the dream always released its cushioning hold, leaving me to fall to the hard floor of reality.

As the world came into full focus, my brain began to register the familiar. The motorised wheelchair at the foot of my bed, and the ever present giant mechanical lifting contraption that hung from my bedroom ceiling like a watchful red kite.

© 2018