Kite

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable." (CS Lewis)

Love comes without surety. In some aspects that is true, the surety that comes with love is that you are promising to hold yourself open to not only be hurt, but also be the source of hurt for the other person. But in doing so, you engage in a compromise with the other person. Compromise is made from the word "promise" and what the two of you are promising is that while you are willing to run the risk of being hurt, you will act in all ways to prevent hurting the other person and trust that they will do the same. If one of you is hurt, you also promise to do your best to repair the hurt. Do discover the "whys" and integrate them into your knowledge of how best to care for the person in the future.

When we came over the bridge and could see who was flying the kite both of us realized one thing. For all the kites we had seen flown or flown ourselves, we had missed noticing who was flying them. In this instance, in an American city on a Tuesday afternoon, it was a man and a woman. And it was obvious from watching them that the joy was shared.

Too many hobbies can insulate you from engaging in the world around you. It is easy to use hobbies and small pleasures to create a barrier that prevents you from running the risk of being vulnerable. Sharing what you love with who you love can change a hobby from something you use to hold the world at bay, to a means of including others in your joy.