It was an absolutely beautiful day at the beach…until I decided I wanted to take a kite out to fly. I had been walking along the beach earlier, watching all the people and all the dogs and all the kite surfers.

The people all have these sticks with ball holders on the end which they can use to launch the balls long distances with little effort. The dogs seemed to enjoy this improvement on the average human’s throwing distance and raced past each other in attempts to catch their balls mid-bounce. Of course, sometimes, they got sidetracked seeing a different ball going the other direction and would turn around and chase it, leaving their owner a long way to walk to recover a ball that has either washed out a few feet into the surf (cold) or been confiscated by another dog (icky). Then the dogs and their owners would be involved in a repeated and slightly awkward conversation about getting the right ball back to the right owner.

I was especially inspired by the kite surfers. The wind was kicking and the weather radio was calling for 8-11ft seas but the sky was as clear and blue and the sun as bright and warm as anyone could wish. They were jumping and splashing and having a blast, safely protected from the cold temperatures by their wetsuits (it is January). I wanted to try. Geoffrey has said I can – we’re hoping to move somewhere we can live on the water – and then kite surfing could be my afternoon exercise. Maybe I need to learn how, first.

But inspired by the sun and the wind and the kite boarders, I went back to the beach house and picked up a kite we’d brought back from China for Geoffrey’s mother. Then, after untangling some cord and making a new tail for the kite, we trouped back out to the beach, ready to try out the kite. By the time we hit the boardwalk one house over, it was raining.

We managed to get the kite in the air, though it almost immediately lost its tail. While Geoffrey and I ran with the kite and threw the kite into the rain, Geoff’s sister amused herself by “flying” the tail of the kite. Five minutes later, soaked through by rain and freezing cold due to lack of sunshine, we trouped back home, defeated.

The kite was put down in the garage, sandy shoes were taken off, wet jeans and jackets thrown into the washing machine and we made it back upstairs.

“Back so soon?” Geoff’s mom motions to the window. The rain clouds have cleared away and the sun is once again shining brightly. One brief blow of weather to drag our kite through the sand and remind us not to give up right away. After all, the sun will come out eventually.