ESL Blogs

LET’S GO FLY A KITE!!!!

Let’s go fly a kite…..up to the highest height, up through the atmosphere, up where the air is clear….”.

I was a little girl when I heard for the first time the famous song from the movie Mary Poppins (*): “Let’s go fly a kite”. I loved that song and I imagined myself cheerfully jumping and singing at the park like in the movie...well maybe not only imagining!!…..I don’t know if my father was a little tired of listening to that song in the house, but one day he bought enormous and colorful kites for my brothers and me. I remembered that we were over the moon!

Starting then we went to an open field every Sunday to fly our “magic devices”. We all ran through the prairie flying our kites. We felt free as birds touching the sky, reaching the stars and feeling the rush of the air over our faces and we were so happy! . At that time I thought there was no kite like mine…but I was wrong!

I grew up and…… I forgot about my kite. I moved to another place and one day a friend told me that he saw giant kites in Guatemala. He said that in a little town of that country there were the biggest kites he had ever seen. I looked at a picture and I was so impressed: they were huge!!. “People in that town –continued my friend- build those kites to honor the dead on a special day, they write messages to their loved ones who have passed away”. I was “all ears” and I understood that those men and women wanted to send messages beyond the stars using the kites. Suddenly I remembered mine.

GIANT KITES IN GUATEMALA

I didn’t know how far those kites could fly but I concluded that those people had the same feeling I had when I was a child -no matter the size of the kite-: the capacity to see beyond!
I realized that when we fly a kite we “look up and around”, enjoy nature and being outdoors, breathe fresh air and share with people around us or far away..

Nowadays we are so busy that we forget these little things and we spend the day “looking down” in our own world, immersed in ourselves.
Maybe we should “fly a kite” more than once in our daily life: plant a flower, take a walk, take time to observe a tiny bee, be amazed by a hill, marvel at the brightness of a raindrop, be mesmerized by the shape of a cloud, laugh with our family and friends, take care of a loved one, listen to someone near us, look up and notice the needs of people around us, and so forth. It is worth reaching that sky and seeing beyond!!

So, let’s go fly a kite with your fist holding tight to the string of your kite…..and send it soaring!!!

(*) Mary Poppins: a classicAmerican musical film produced by Walt Disney. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g89NxTTycxc

Expressions:

Over the moon: feeling pleasure and happiness.

All ears: to be waiting eagerly to hear about something.

Vocabulary:

Kite (n): a frame covered with cloth or plastic and joined to a long string, that you fly in the air when the weather is windy.

Rush (n): the act of suddenly moving somewhere quickly.

Outdoors: outside a building, in or into the open air.

Mesmerize (v): attract strongly, as if with a magnet.

Soar (v): to rise very quickly to a high level.