Biodegradeable? Of course they are

Jude is easy to entertain. A big, clear shimmery garbage bag and a little wind and he is happy, so happy. So am I.

Most days I bring several with me out to the playard next to our building. Jude watches me hold it up to let the wind inflate the thing and he flaps madly, hardly able to contain himself. I tie it and hand it over and he flings it up into the air and dances with sheer exctasy as it flits and floats in the wind. It is like a ballet, my son and his big plastic pet.

Sometimes it floats way, way up, higher than our 10 story high rise, so far up until I am sure the planes coming into O'Hare are in jeopardy, and Jude is overcome with delight and anxiety, everyone in the yard is looking up, will it come back? If it falls on the playground equipment where Jude can't reach the big boys playing basketball get it and bring it to Jude.

Sometimes it floats over the wall, into the busy street, and brakes squeal and horns honk. I can't imagine what some poor cab driver thinks, a big clear shiny orb floating past his windshield. I picture him smiling admiringly and going home to be nicer to his children.

My friend Joy told me her favorite thing to do was to watch Jude and his big clear balloon bags,
and one morning she woke up, half dreaming about them. When she went to open her shade, there was a big one, blown onto the ledge outside her window, stuck there, waiting for her.

Jude used to cry when they flew away, grief stricken, and was not comforted by the handful of extras I kept in the stroller. He would scream the way he did when we left the room or said good night. His brain couldn't recreate the picture of what he loved, so when he couldn't see it, it ceased to exist. Garbage bags, his toy train, his mother. Gone.

One day a bag made its escape and I picked Jude up in tight squeeze. He looked at me and said,
"That's okay, it will fly in the sky with the clouds."

That's right, I said, amazed. Jude came in for dinner, without a fuss. Big clear industrial size trash bags are teaching my son about life. Joy, beauty in ordinary things. Letting go.

When I close my eyes at night, I think of them out there, floating on the wind like dandelion seeds, darting and swooping, flirting with the wind, happy and dancing with the clouds. They are big crackly plastic wishes and dreams, and they never disappear. They go on forever.