New Delhi

I'll never forget kites flying above rooftops on a dry, Indian evening. I could hear the murmur of families sitting on their roofs as I stared off my own balcony. The smell of curry and rotten fruit tingling my nostrils, I lived a moment that I could live again, and again for eternity.

Maybe it was the thrill of traveling, the good friends around me, or the hope of a full stomach that made

this memory replay itself like a video on my heart years to come. Or maybe it was a small truth that had crept into my soul that evening. It was the moment that life, after going and going, had grown still, and soft, and quiet; and it reassured me that I could live again, that I could love again, that I could change. It was the dry air of a promise for a second chance, hovering in a rainbow of a thousand kites.