glow.

Day full of blue sky. So full it had to end early. Not yet cold. We are on the cusp of big things today, tonight, forever. We but just now, we are are on our way to the lights.

Night falls. We take a pilgrimage from my house over to the softball fields in the park. A group walking with a yellow farm wagon; four kids madly waving glow sticks. Acorns litter the sidewalk and we crunch them underfoot. The night is warm on the edge of cool. The road traffic is a ruckus, cars playing a sort of pinball to secure parking spots and outsmart others stuck in the jam. It is gridlock; policemen are impatient with their directions and brusque conversations with people leaning out of their cars to find the source of the slow-down. On the road, no one wins.

Only those walking make it through to the lights and whistles. Somewhere along the way, Ollie gets exited as only a three and a half year old can, waving a glow stick and exclaiming with great triumph: I am SUPER MARIO!

We make it up to the place where the balloons are tethered to the ground and wade through the crowd. Those sitting and standing and milling, those trying to escape wagons and strollers. Past the junk stands selling plastic blow up hot air balloons and beads, paper parasols and all other manner of unrelated junk. We make it through to the inside, in the corridor where we are standing between the tall, soft, swaying silk balloons. Kick up the dust and look around, heads lifted to the glow and magical float of the balloons in the sky all around us.