Allergy season in California is a mystery to me. Blooming is nonstop, yet in April, only April, I suffer. Not as much as I did in Massachusetts in May, but perceptibly. I can’t name the culprit.

Suffer though I may, I’m working next to open windows, as I am a firm believer in exposing myself to windborne nature, especially microbes, whenever possible. I keep the opposite of a sealed home environment. One of the joys of California is that I can do so for at least part of the day almost every day of the year.

Today the wind has been gusty, so I have employed numerous items as paperweights, closed my notebooks and folders, turned books to face pages-away from the wind source, cleared extra papers from the printer trays, and put a line-dry item on a hanger outside. At some point this level of wind-related activity spawned a thought: I should go fly a kite.

I own kites. I like kites. Yet I can’t pinpoint the last time I flew one. The most memorable was in Cancun in 1996. We brought a kite with us from New England and my then four-year-old son and I flew it, while my  husband minded the six-month-old. With all the string out, the kite rose over the six-story hotel. It was the sort of hotel at which a helpful young man appeared to roll up the string for me when it was close to dinnertime.

Today, I grabbed a Prism Parafoil kite and a roll of string from my closet and set out for the nearest ball field. It flew after about six tries, that is, six times of untangling the string and waiting for a gust to lift the kite into the air versus just skittering it along the grass. Then I just flew the kite, letting the string out and hauling it in, pulling it taut and releasing it, walking or running over the field to avoid obstacles as the wind shifted. It was oddly relaxing. Eventually the kite snagged in a tree; I was able to tug it out and fly some more.

When I first arrived, a dad was exhorting three young children to race around the bases. I like to imagine mom was home having a rest. Those were later replaced by a dad and son each wearing a glove, who engaged in a more purposeful game of catch. I stayed in the outfield.

I will miss such impromptu afternoon adventures when I start full-time work, though I will be happy to enable similar chances for my husband, who has worked long enough.

On the way home the radio reported that Americans with full-time, below-living-wage jobs who qualify for government supports such as Medicaid will be asked to do more. I frequently use the phrase First World problem, but I wonder, are we still the First World? I wish I could offer a stressed-out working person an idle afternoon hour in the outfield, though she or he would probably prefer a raise.