There are moments in life that feel less like events and more like rituals — moments not designed for necessity, not crafted for competition, but for nothing more than the simple wonder of being alive together. The Night Glow at the Balloon Fiesta is one of those moments.
It is not about the chase, or the science of wind, or the mechanics of lift. It is not even about the sky. This one belongs to the ground. To the people. To us.
If you’ve never been, go. Find yourself in the crowd as the sun slips beneath the Sandias, as the night takes its place in the sky. The balloons stay tethered, their great bodies still and waiting, while the pilots prepare their burners. Then it happens — one flame, then another, and suddenly the field becomes a cathedral of fire and color. Sometimes the burners roar in unison, turning the night into daylight for a breath. Sometimes it is a dance, coordinated bursts that ripple across the horizon like notes of a song too big for words.
The sound of the burners is guttural, alive — a rush that shakes you in your chest. Around you, there is laughter. Children dart through the grass with glow sticks in their hands. Families huddle together, necks tilted back, faces painted in red and orange light. Strangers turn into companions, caught in the same breathless silence when the balloons flare together, and the park glows as though the earth itself has caught fire.
It feels ancient in its way. Humanity has been gathering around flame for as long as we’ve been here — caves, camps, hearths, bonfires. Fire has always been the place we return to, the place we make our myths and find our meaning. The Night Glow is no different. It is our modern bonfire, our ritual of light against the dark, a spectacle that reminds us that not everything we do needs to point forward. Some things, like this, simply point inward.
You don’t think about this when you’re there. You’re too busy taking it in — the heat that flashes across your face, the squeals of the children, the cameras held up like prayer offerings. But later, as you walk to your car and join the crawl of taillights trying to leave Balloon Fiesta Park, you feel it settling in. You carry it with you. And one day, maybe weeks later, maybe years, something will spark it again — a flame in a grill, a child’s laugh at dusk — and you’ll remember. The glow, the crowd, the sound. And you’ll smile, because you were there, part of it.
The balloons will always belong to the sky. But the glow — the glow belongs to us.
Kyle J. Hayes
kylehayesblog.com
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