Handcrafted by Dad and Uncle Gabriele using wicker sticks, homemade glue, and colored paper featuring two big eyes drawn on them, our kites had only one string because that way, as Dad put it, they would be freer to soar in the sky and perform their favorite acrobatics. Those were truly enchanting days when we could marvel at holding in our hands a string moved by the wind and share our dreams with the clouds.

I fondly remember the kites’ tails swaying in the air, their sudden descent and ascent, the bumps, and the string occasionally getting caught in some shrubs. I can still hear our laughter, feel the joy of the kites displaying their colors in the sky, watching us from above, proud and glittering in the sunlight, entrusting their fate to the whims of the wind.

To get them off the ground, I needed Dad’s help. He would start running into the wind with one hand held high, gripping the kite, and the other hand holding the spool with the string. Patient and determined, moving swiftly with his gaze fixed upwards, he wouldn’t stop until the kite gracefully soared into the ether, and we, young girls, amidst applause and shouts of joy, let ourselves be captivated by that mysterious object that could fly even though it had no wings.

There was only purity in those childhood games, when with a piece of paper and a couple of sticks, you could communicate with the sky, occasionally wondering if that distant kite was afraid of falling.