Red Balloon

[Miss Shadows]

When I was 15 I saw a beautiful grey-toned sketch of a little girl holding a red balloon on the beach. Somehow, this was the exact moment I fell in love with writing.

Someone gave me that sketch as a thank you present, an expression of gratitude for several Saturdays spent poring over their work at the behest of a mutual friend. As I unwrapped the piece of art all at once sadness and a sort of peaceful aloneness washed over me. A sensation I'd seldom felt, and never understood before.

I'd felt it once drinking coffee late at night on a friend's porch in Mexico , and another time watching snow fall in the mountains. This was a melancholic euphoria that came in the rare, silent moments when something in me was truly satiated, perhaps a curiousness for the world.

I realized then, staring hopelessly at that picture, that writing was my red balloon on a grey beach.

[Arcana]

Beautifully put Miss Shadows and I loved the metaphor at the end.