Kite Season

By Vince Aaron Omega

As a child I lived through summer sweaty and unburdened. To spend whole afternoons with nothing planned and nothing urgent, just the warmth of sunlight, the touch of earth under my feet, and to get my kite soaring into the sky.

Summer always meant going to my grandparents’ house nestled in the quiet south of Cebu. It was the season of reunions when all the cousins came together, barefoot and wide-eyed, ready to turn the hills and rice paddies into our playground. When the green turns to gold.

We spent hours running up dusty trails and racing down slopes. Our laughter echoing across the open fields. I remember a downhill so steep we had to crash into a tree trunk just to stop ourselves. Most of us did, except for my sister, who kept rolling past the tree trunk. She cried not because of the fall but for the cherry lollipop she lost on the way down that broke her heart more than the scrapes ever could.

The days were hot, the kind of heat that wrapped around your skin and clung to your clothes. But we didn’t mind. We walked through mud, followed the river like it was a compass, and darted across town as if we owned it. We were wild and free.

In a household steeped in faith, summer also meant Flores de Mayo. I still remember our little voices (mine and my cousins’) singing hymns inside the church, the scent of wax from the candles mixed with the fragrance of white flowers. I lived through that looking forward to what’s next.

Years have passed but I still find myself chasing those same sensorial feeling so I always try to keep that child in me alive. The one who runs without hesitation, who didn’t mind the dirt, and lives with a heart unburdened by time. No matter where summer may find me, I live a little through those memories. I return to it perhaps out of sentimentality but also out of need. The need to hold onto something simple before the world asked for more.

I still haven’t learned to fly a kite to this day. Trust me, I’ve tried countless times. But maybe someday, on a midsummer afternoon, when the wind is just right, I finally will.