This is one of my favorite childhood photos.
My grandmother Margaret is in the foreground. I'm flying a kite on the beaches of Calpe, Spain, near Alicante. We spent summers and a few Easter breaks in the warm Spanish sunshine when we lived in Belgium (which is filled with as much rain and as many rhododendrons as Washington). Wow, sounds like the life, eh. When I tell my traveling stories, I become envious. Wait, it was my life and I'm envious?
But remembering "some other grand time" is not why I like the photo. I like this photo because when I came across it in my grandmother’s album I had never seen it and -- it surprised me. I look so comfortable flying a kite. As if standing on the earth with my head tilted into the wide open air is the most comfortable thing in the world. I look at ease on terra firma, like I belong to the space around me - water, air, wind. That's what I love about it. I look so darn grounded – and I don't remember carrying that feeling with me.
The photo makes me remember that what I remember can be different then what also was….
