What if you were blind and deaf?

The kite was two twined together pieces of smooth wood, like that of a crucifix, bound with fabric. I felt the fabric with the easy stitches, the way they spun and crossed over each other to form the most luxurious image that I had only the privilege to fancy in my mind. The thread played a haughty game of catch and release with itself that created the delicate pedals and the strong stem of the exquisitely conceived rose. I thought of the tedious ins and outs of the very life of the needle that was always united to the spool. I thought of fingers that spent day and night weaving it together, the sinewy fingers of my mentor and beloved friend, Gwendolyn. There was once a tail to the kite, but it is gone now as is Gwendolyn. It has been three years since her blood turned on her own body and she died of leukemia in her thirty second year of age. It has been three years since she taught me the dearest joy of what it is to fly.
I had never heard her voice, nor had I ever seen her, but I knew her nature. She held a kind and gentle disposition with a hint of patience. The utter fascination she held of the world later became mine as she wished to share the innovative ideas of our present era with me.
“Do you know what a kite is?”
The winds had shifted. They had changed from their previous state of howling mongrels that brought downfalls of heavy rain and murky clouds echoing upon their hind legs, to the blanket of warm air, with the ever present scent of newly blooming flowers that opened to taste the April showers. I had sat upon the bench wrought with wood and metal when Gwendolyn had again signed into my hand “ Do you know what a kite is?”. I signed to her that I had not the single idea of what it was. With that response the next thing I felt on my hand was not hers. Rather, it was something that had fabric and wood. I allowed my fingers to run across it as mice run through the woods searching every nook and cranny. The downy wood was tied together with a rugged sort of twine to form a shape similar to a cross. The fabric was strewn across it making a four sided shape. My scrutinizing hands searched the fabric for an answer that would tell me what this contraption was. I instead fell upon rows and fields of stitches, strung together in a certain pattern. Following the carefully grouped threads a flower emerged as the real flowers did in the spring. I recognized the shape of the pedals and the rough stem with thorns as sharp as knives. It was the same flower that Gwendolyn had first introduced me to. The threads formed a rose. From what I perceived to be the bottom of this contraption came two strings. One felt like a thin rope, as any other rope would feel in size and shape and was attached to a sort of spool that contained handles. On the other hand, the other felt like a silky ribbon, thicker and wider in size and taut at its end.
Gwendolyn’s hand had again reached mine, K-I-T-E. She had allowed me to explore every aspect of the material object that was in my hands. I knew, even then, that I had not a single idea of what this could do or what it would mean to me in the future.
“What does a kite do?”
That day Gwendolyn gave me the kite to take home. For hours I remember running my hands across it, feeling the rose on the kite and every detail that had been spun into the fabric. I could smell the dark maple wood and the freshness of the fabric that seemed to be cotton. The last thing that she had asked before I returned home was, “What does a kite do?”. I had no answer the moment she had asked me, nor an answer that night. I had fallen asleep with the question still fresh in my mind.
“What does a kite do, Lyla?”
The next day Gwendolyn and I had gone to the field again. She signed in to my hand, “Have you fingered out what a kite does?”.
I had signed to her that I did not know, but I knew what it must look like and how beautiful it really is. She took my hand and placed all my fingers on her mouth. I felt her smile as I did when I was a child. Just as she had done before when describing to me what it is to be happy. Lowering my hand she spelled a word, just the one word F-L-Y.
I remember the thoughts running through my mind at an insuperable speed. Linking the two thoughts together I had figured out that the kite and the word fly were somehow connected. Although, I still had the faintest idea of what ‘fly’ meant. Gwendolyn held my hand and tried to explain to me that what a kite does is fly. I knew what a kite was, but the fact that she had given me another meaning to it did not help me to understand. I felt the air all around me become a thick , heavy wool blanket that was unbearable. The sun was beating upon my neck and my impatience grew with every bead of sweat. Gwendolyn had seen that I was growing impatient and irritated with the fact of my inability to understand the concept. So she had proposed we take a stroll around the field. I remember the precious time that had passed before Gwendolyn delicately grasped my hand, signing two words, ‘Lyla’ and ‘walk’. She had given me a noun and a verb. Just as she did before and preceded to do when she had again signed the two words ‘kite’ and fly’ into my hand. At that moment I knew that fly was and action that the kite could do. I had become one step closer to figuring out what it had really meant and was now ecstatic with the pea sized progress I had achieved.
Seizing the opportune time, with my immeasurable curiosity and desire to understand the concept, Gwendolyn took the kite and my hand. She lead me up the what I could have sworn to have been Mount Everest. As we climbed my legs turned to lead, my breath became harsher and the air around me was not still as it was before. Upon reaching the top the gushes of wind pulled and tugged on our very beings. It was a rouge trying to push us off his territory. Our fabrics became twisted and mangled against our skin. Our once neat hair was tossed and turned as the perilous sea storms’ waves. Gwendolyn had again began signing in to my hand. She had asked if I felt the wind and that even though the wind seemed intolerable it would help me understand flying.
In my hands she placed the kite. She signed to me I that was on the edge of the hill and to count five seconds after the tug before I ran down the clear path set before me. I felt a tug in the other end of the kites rope and a surge of fear ran through my entire body. Three seconds had gone by, I was terrified. Four seconds I was hopeless and five seconds and my knees buckled as my body met the tall grass. I remember waking up to the awful scent of the smelling salts. I had felt the covers around me, turned and smelled the pillow assuring myself I was home. Gwendolyn had taken me home and was beside herself. I remember it oh so well, her hand quivering in mine. I had told her that I had been petrified. I didn’t know what was going to happen between the time I began running to the time I had hit the bottom of the hill. With that Gwendolyn had apologized and signed she would try to explain flying in another way in a few days. She explained that the physician said it was best if I rested for a few days.
I had not wanted to wait any longer. Thoughts had paced through my mind for two days and I could do nothing about them. I remember the utter silence around me on the third day. The thoughts had stopped and I was alone. I didn’t want to be a tree stump, I never wanted to not understand. There was only one thought that had entered my mind and had cleared the path for a swarm of countless others. ‘I would make the kite fly’ was the one thought that had entered my mind that day and the rest that followed were plans of how to make it fly. I remember thinking, ‘If I could make the kite fly I would understand what fly meant and everything would fall together like puzzle pieces’.
On the forth day Gwendolyn had returned and she was tired and frail. The day felt warm and crisp. The fresh grass swayed with the wind, but her hands remained cold and chalky. Before she began her lesson that day I remember asking her to take me to the top of the hill. She had agreed and the second time going on the hill my legs were like feathers, my breath was strong and the rouge of the wind held not a single strand of power over me. I had given the kite to Gwendolyn and took the spool end. She had known what I was attempting to do and allowed me to proceed. With the tug of the string I didn’t wait five seconds, I ran as the racers did. I passed through the wind as a ship through water. My legs ran faster and faster. I felt the ground passing under my feet at an immense speed. I didn’t know what to expect and the only thing that I had was hope. The hope that I would understand what flying was. I had run, there were no barriers, nothing to stop me and something tugged on the kite and I felt the kite no longer scratching upon the ground with its cat claws, but free. The kite was pulling up, not dragging down as it had before. It had been in the air, nothing was holding it down to the ground to make it walk, crawl, or run. It was flying. Joy had filled every morsel of my being. The kite was flying and I had made it do that. The next thing I knew, all I felt was a sharp tug on the rope that brought me to the ground followed by the insipid taste of dirt in my mouth. I didn’t know what had happened, and what I felt afterwards was something that had crashed down on my legs and had caused pain.
I had stood up, brushed myself off and realized the cause of the pain was the kite. It had given way to gravity and fell on me. Gwendolyn had gently grasped me, assuring me she was there. I had signed to her with excitement and utter happiness still in me that I made the kite fly. While we were walking up the hill again I had asked her “what made the kite stop, why did it fall?’.
In my hand Gwendolyn placed the spool, and then signed for me to drop it. I understood what gravity was. I understood why the spool fell, but what I didn’t understand was why had something that could fly and stay in the air fallen.
When we had reached the bottom of the hill Gwendolyn had given me an analogy. She had signed, or rather asked, “If you walk, does that not mean you are unable to fall anymore?” into my hand.
I hesitated and signed no of course not, one will always be prone to make mistakes, or to fall.
“ So does that not mean then that if something is able to fly, does it not have the same faults? Is it not still able to fall?”
“ It would be able to fall.”
Gwendolyn had taken me home that day and said she would return two days later with a surprise that I was sure to like.
The days were growing warmer and the winds were beginning to stay still. Two days had passed moving at the speed of molasses. Gwendolyn had finally returned, her movements slower and she was more frail. The holding of a hot coal would have amounted to touching her hand.
“ I promised you a surprise.”
I was exceedingly ecstatic, I didn’t know what was going to happen. All I knew was that when Gwendolyn said that she had a surprise she usually proposed an idea or something new to ponder.
“ Do you know what bird is?”
I didn’t know what a bird was and I, myself, was puzzled. I remember sitting in the sun trying to think.
“ You know what an animal is. A bird is an animal.” Gwendolyn had said nothing afterwards. She held her motionless hand in mine indicating a pause. Until she finally signed again, “ They can fly too.”
My mind was pacing, thoughts spurred in every direction imaginable. I knew that a kite could fly through the air. I had run a kite across plenty of fields knowing that it was just a kite and I had made it fly in the sky. The way I made it weave in and out of the clouds as the stitches upon the kite weaved through the fabric. To fly was to defy gravity, but with help. For the first time Gwendolyn had proposed an idea to me that scared me and at the same time I was intrigued. A living thing can fly, but how. I knew that we were living, plants were living and neither could fly. She had said that birds could fly.
Gwendolyn had signed to me and told me to hold out my hand perpendicular to the ground and not move. On my hand things were poking me like the thorns on a rose, but these were moving. I felt two sets of what I had nothing better to call them at that time than, ‘live thorns’. The fingers of my other hand moved up the live thorns. They were attached to a warm little thing that moved. It was alive, it wasn’t like the kite. I followed the coat of the petite animal that stood on my hand. The coat was drawn out into pieces all arranged together to form one larger version of the silk. The head of the animal was small and the closer I got to the front of the face I felt not a nose like on a dog or a human, but something entirely different. The animal had a protruded hard figure on its face that was not just one piece, but parted into two. The protrusion, of what I later found out to be its beak opened and closed revealing a mouth. This animal was a small bird.
Taking my hand, Gwendolyn rested her hand on top of mine forming one and we carefully pulled something from the bird. It was an extension of the bird that was able to hide. The extension held the same coat as the rest of the body and formed an arrow with a definite pointed end. Putting the extension down Gwendolyn had signed into my hand “This is what helps the bird fly. It is what makes it defy gravity. Just like your kite does with the aid of you, but a bird has no strings, it is free.”
To fly was to defy gravity, to be free in the air. There were no limitations, no barriers that need to be broken. I was happy, more than happy. The year was 1932 and I was twenty- three when Gwendolyn showed me what it is to fly. Shortly after Gwendolyn had passed and my next mentor showed to me the astonishing world of aviators.