yellow bags

What is it with these flying yellow bags?

Since I blogged about the first one that landed on my premature daffodils, I've seen 2 more drifting high in the air around my house, always yellow. Yesterday one paused while blowing past my third floor studio window as if looking in and saying "hello there". In the 5 seconds it took me to turn and pick up my camera, it had sped up and crossed the sky high above the trees.

I'm not sure why the flying bags get me so excited. Watching them kind of reminds me of the annual Washington Elementary School balloon release, which, I guess is an activity that's become unpopular for environmental reasons. But oh how I loved seeing hundreds of balloons, including mine, that I had bought and tied my name to, fly up into the sky in a tremendous coloured mass until they scattered and became invisible.

More, I loved the possibility that someone very far away, who I did not know yet, might find mine and become a friend. That never happened. Out of the hundreds, always only a handful of tags were recovered. The names of the children whose balloons were found were announced each morning with great importance and ceremony, and they commanded a higher respect for the rest of the day. I don't think I ever questioned this at the time. No, those kids didn't actually do anything more noteworthy then the rest of us, but it was as if a magic force had chosen them, or God had given them a little nod of approval. Whatever it was, I envied them furiously.