Editor’s note: for the next two weeks we’ll be running the best of our This Ordinary Day pieces. We’ve enjoyed working with so many great writers and wonderful people and felt it was high time to take a look back at some of what they’ve brought us. If you’d like to see more pieces, please take a trip over to our archives page — it’ll be well worth your time.

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It was a Sunday, and I was taking a walk. By myself. No husband, no son, no friends in sight. Just me and my iPod, keeping me company with some music. A much needed retreat from whatever it is that constitutes my day-to-day.

It was cold and rainy, the dirt paths in the park all muddy, the colours muted and grey. I had been yearning for spring to come for weeks now, the winter had been so long here in northern Germany. Give me some colour, some light, I was pleading silently.

My eyes caught on a brightly coloured piece of fabric, tangled up in the bare branches of an old tree. A kite, of course, a child’s game, abruptly pulled to a halt by the forces of nature. A symbol for the carefree, playful times of childhood, and the ways in which they are often muted too, just like earth in winter. A symbol also for the dreams we have when we are young, when we still believe in the magic of stories and know about the power that lies within each of us. When we still trust ourselves. When our intuition is intact and taking the lead.

More often than not, those dreams get tangled in the How-it-should-be’s that surround us from all sides, just like a kite gets tangled in a tree.

Think of all those dreams, untold for fear of embarrassment, muted by supposedly well-meant but unasked-for advice. Think of all these manifestations of hope and intent, starting out with so much purpose, only to be stopped, maybe even crippled, by, for lack of a better word, circumstance.

I’d like to think that these brightly coloured dreams are sitting in the top of each tree, millions of them, patiently awaiting their chance to break free and continue on the journey they started so long ago. They could be like that kite, taking flight once again, freed by the wind. Missing a piece or two, torn maybe, but flying nonetheless.

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