The First Kite
风起之时

“The trembling joy of firsts.
记忆随风升起，童心仍在天际。“

oil on canvas
36x46cm

Kite flying was always a family ritual – a gaggle of us trooping towards the park, colourful canvases in hand, giggling and laughing. With the sweet wind in our hair, sunlight on our faces, our feet against the emerald green grass, we released our colours into the cotton candy sky.

I was always too young to join in, watching enviously from the sidelines, wondering what the excitement was all about. And finally, on that dreamy afternoon, I was about to find out.

Someone – maybe my father, or my brother – knelt beside me, his hands guiding mine around the reel. “Wait for the wind”, he said. I remember squinting into the glare, the thread cutting softly against my palms, the kite trembling like it could sense my heartbeat.

Then – a gust, sudden and strong. It surged upward, taking the string with it, and I almost stumbled. Laughter erupted around me as the kite caught the sky, fluttering and steadying itself all at once. For a moment, I thought I was flying with it – breath held, heart racing, utterly alive.

Over the years, I’ve flown countless kites since. The motions come easily now, the familiar rhythm of pull and release.

But try as I might, I could never recreate that same trembling rush of joy, that small miracle of flight, that quiet pride of holding on for the first time.

That feeling lives somewhere beyond reach – in the soft folds of memory, in the quiet country of dreams – where time drifts, and the child in me still runs beneath a sky of colour.

Reverie drifts between waking and memory – the soft space where moments are half-remembered, yet felt completely. This painting captures that space of wonder: the trembling joy of a first experience, suspended forever in time.