You wrote me a letter once, telling me about flight. You told me of wonder–how being borne on the wind gave you this feeling of freedom that nothing could equal. Your words brushed across my skin and I tried to imagine what it must be like, to soar–to fly side by side with a gull, to look a bird in the eye.

One summer, when I was a child, delta flyers also came to the mountains. I remember them descending from the skies. Some of them landed on dry ground and some of them landed in the ricefields. In the air, they looked like strange birds…the shadow of their fliers casting shadows on the ground made me think of things that didn’t exist in those in mountains.

I dreamed of flight. I wanted to know what it was like to ride the wind. To follow its compass and go where it took me. I wanted to see beyond the green of my horizon. Reading your words, I dreamed of you high up in the air–earth passing below you, the blue of the ocean topped by white, the long sky and the eternal quiet.

When we met, you put away flight. You did not want to risk vanishing from my life without a word. Instead, you flew across the ocean and came to me.

I am remembering magic and danger. Of how when you saw my desire to stretch my wings and find a different kind of flight, you decided to let me go.

Did you ever fear that I would vanish suddenly from your sight?

You never said so.

I hope you knew that no matter how far I flew, I would still always come back home to you.