Icarus and kites

This is an oil picture by Babara Fletcher entitled 'Man with Kite'. Today in a moment of reckless abandon I purchased her watercolour and acrylic version of the same picture. Though much smaller and cheaper. It is beautiful and it is me I have decided. I am that man flying my kite. Testing the water, seeing what I can do with it. Swoop through the sky with my feet safely on the ground. I am being an insecure Icarus, having quite got the faith to leap but allowing the kite to live my dreams.

I got the picture from one of my favourite galleries. It is true escapism to go there but also full of inspiration for a writer. I took my painting and then did something I never do (the guilt associated with taking time for me when I have so much else to do always stops me) - I say in a coffee shop and sipped a little bit of chamomile tea whilst I took in every inch of this tiny picture.

I love beautiful skies, I love the stars and the moon. They are my inspiration. There is a story in Italo Calvino's Cosmicomics about climbing up to the moon using a ladder. Earlier this week there was a moon I am sure you could do that too. I was picking my son up from work at midnight and there it was hanging in blackness. An orange moon that I could almost touch as it was so low in the sky. It was mystical.

I bought this picture today because it is my time to be Icarus and not the man on the beach. Maybe stupidly but with faith it is time for me to step off the cliff and try to reach the sun or moon with my writing. To believe and have faith in it and myself by trusting the connections. But more importantly to go back to being who I really am as a person and a writer and not let others decide who I should be. There are only a few who know me enough to suggest things like that (at times knowing me better than I know myself) and it is them that I need to listen to again. I need to go back to reaching for the stars, the moon and the sun in my own way just like Icarus but without the ultimate fall hopefully.

A very short clip!