Flying a Kite in Balnibarbi

The citizens of Laputa, according to Gulliver’s Travels, lived on a flying island with an adamantine bottom.

The citizens of Balnibarbi lived below them, on the ground, and they were the subjects of the King of Laputa. If the citizens of Balnibarbi threatened to revolt, Laputa would throw rocks down on them, or block out the sun and rain by hovering over them, or even fly low enough to crush the rebellious city to death. This didn’t always work. If the citizens of Balnibarbi had a petition for the king of Laputa, they would write it down and tie it to the ropes the Laputans used to pull supplies up to the city, just like a child tying a tail to a kite. In other words, if the citizens of Balnibarbi had a petition for the king of Laputa, they could go fly a kite.

If you were an English major, as I was, you’ll remember that Laputa was Jonathan Swift’s parody of England. Balnibarbi, or at least part of it, was Ireland. But Laputa and Balnibarbi are also America. Laputa and Balnibarbi everywhere else where there’s a big gap between the rich who block out the sun and the poor who can go fly a kite.

Personally I live in the  Balnibarbi part of America. I’ve lived for ten years in LaBelle, in Steubenville, in Eastern Ohio, a scruffy neighborhood of a notorious economically depressed town in the least beautiful part of ravaged Appalachia, all in the middle of the richest country on Earth. This summer, the sky was temporarily darkened for days by smoke from wildfires out West where people have money, caused by climate change triggered by the captains of industry who have far more money. This year we’ve been trapped in our homes by a plague brought to America by people who can afford to travel. When the president started calling it the China Flu, my husband started to call it the “aff-flu” since affluent people on cruise ships caught it. I can’t do anything about the aff-flu. I can’t do anything about the looming climate catastrophe that turned the sky gray for days. I can’t do anything about the playboy who refuses to leave the White House, or the wealthy cardinals in the Vatican, or any of the other dealings of Laputa. But I do like to fly kites.

Rosie and I went out to fly kites just today. We tried it yesterday, but the wind wasn’t good enough. Today it was perfect. We have two large nylon kites: an eagle with a wingspan as wide as I am tall, and a shark who is as long from nose to tail as Rosie is tall. I’m going to pick up a box kite shaped like a whale the next time we have treat money, and after that we’re getting the giant dragon. For now, the shark kite is Rosie’s favorite. She named it Mr. Tuna Fish.

We took Mr. Tuna Fish out to the big vacant lot. This is the place that used to be a joyless brick apartment complex for poor elderly people, but it got bulldozed and seeded with grass. It’s between the little urban market that’s walking distance if you can’t afford bus fare, and the church that was all over the news in February when their pastor pleaded guilty to sex crimes. The rental house that got the copper wiring stolen one night, which led the landlord to put up great big colorful hand-lettered signs cursing the thieves and exclaiming that they QUIT, is at one corner of the lot.  The enormous, bone-dry, barkless dead tree that neighbors ominously call “the Widowmaker,” because it’s going to drop a limb and smash somebody’s car any day now but the property owners won’t cut it down, is across the street. The house of the little boy who tried to climb in our window and steal Rose’s toys is nearby.

It is a joyless neighborhood, and it’s worse during a pandemic.

Rosie and I set Mr. Tuna Fish aloft.

I’ve gotten pretty good at flying kites, but I can’t tell you how to do it. It’s a completely non-verbal practice. First you go like this, then you run into the wind like this. Then, just when you feel the kite tugging a certain way, you go like that, and the kite pulls back on you like this, and then you have to go like that. And you keep doing that to the string until the kite is up in the air and staying there instead of diving for the ground. It would be easier on a beach or a great big field, but what we have is the vacant lot.

Today I did this and then I did that and I ran back and forth; I braced myself in a wide-legged fighting stance to fight the kite string and probably would have looked dignified if I was capable of dignity. Rosie kept unreeling slack to give Mr. Tuna Fish a longer leash. But Mr. Tuna Fish kept taking to the air, turning a flip, and then crash landing. He never stayed up for more than a few minutes. The mid-November wind was too unpredictable, somehow.

Still, everyone kept stopping to watch.

It’s hard to describe how grim it is here, so I can’t really explain what a miracle it is when people are happy. And I can’t say that everyone who stopped to watch was happy. The people walking back from the grocery store were still masked, so I couldn’t tell if they were smiling or not.

But the children who rode by on their bikes were smiling. Some just cried “Wipeout!” when Mr. Tuna Fish hit the ground. Some of them ran over, masks down around their chins, and begged to try the kite. Here I was in trouble because I couldn’t tell them how to fly it. “First you do this, and then you do that. No, not like that. Hold the string, not the frame. Now give it slack. Now– no, his tail is caught on the line, let it go. No, no, do THIS.”

But they didn’t seem to mind that they couldn’t do it. They just liked to try.

A grown-up walking by smiled up at Mr. Tuna Fish and declared we had a “mighty fine kite!”

Mr. Tuna Fish tugged on the line and ignored my doing this and that; he turned barrel rolls and zig-zagged about until my arms were exhausted.

We went back home, to real life here in Balnibarbi where nothing is as it should be and most people are helpless.

But for a few minutes, we’d flown. And we’d made LaBelle a bit more exciting.

I guess that makes it a good day.

Image via Pixabay.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, visit our donate page.