Life is random, balloons are cruel
Emily ran in a 3 kilometer race today at the Shadfest at Penn’s Treaty Park. The festival was small but fun with terrible music by the “Future of Rock” kids (no more than 2 songs next time please!) and great beer and food under the tents.
We were hanging out in the tent area finishing our cups of PBC beer and we saw a little girl walking toward us through the crowd with a Hello Kitty balloon. She had clear passage between the picnic blankets and baby strollers, but for some reason, the balloon escaped her grip.
It rose away from her outstretched hand and cruelly, just beyond reach of two intervening adults, before it paused momentarily. It swirled around at that height for a brief second. Just long enough to give all lookers the illusion of hope, as though, Hello Kitty had changed her mind and would return to the child’s slayed fingers.
Then, the balloon returned on it’s upward dance.
The hopeful pause, the slow disaster. Emily and I to begin to laugh. I know how cruel this sounds. I want to point out that we were a good distance from the girl and surrounded by dozens of other adults, most of which missed the entire drama, caught up in their conversations and beer. We were not ridiculing the kid, but, yeah, we laughed.
It was a mix of being aware of how we were all caught up in that hopeful moment and the sadness of it all.
As we laughed, Emily said, “Like it was going to come back down,” and we laughed harder.
The girl began to walk away and I said, (to Emily as if to the girl), “Your trying so hard not to cry.”
We laughed harder still.
