Bag Aloft

Yesterday while walking, I watched an empty black plastic bag swirl between lanes of traffic on Highway 99W in South Corvallis. The turbulence sent it upward, above the extra-tall utility poles. There the churning quit, and just when the limp form seemed about to drift downward, it continued rising. I paused, hat brim shading my upturned face. Would it fly twice as high as the utility poles?  Yes, quite readily. And it kept ascending -- at an increasing rate. More swiftly than a released toy balloon, it bobbed and fluttered skyward. Caught in an updraft, I assumed.

How high would it go? I decided to continue watching until it fell -- or vanished from sight. It was already wondrously high and maintaining its rapid rise. As there was little breeze, the bag made modest lateral progress. Also it didn't spiral upward, but rather levitated more or less on a straight course. Was the ascent abetted by a trapped pocket of sun-heated air?

It quickly became a black speck against patchy gray clouds. I watched for a minute, two minutes, three, more. It passed a high-flying bird. Had I not witnessed the bag's take-off, I might have mistook it for a crow at this point.  My neck grew sore, and still the bag soared. If I averted my eyes, I might lose track of it; so I maintained a fixed gaze. I was determined to follow the wayward piece of debris. Had it become a proxy for my own restlessness? Yes, something in me wanted to be up there. The receding mote shrank to near nothingness, and I couldn't tell whether I still had a fix on it or I was now experiencing a trick of vision. When the specter mounted to heaven through a gap between clouds, I abandoned my vigil and strolled on, rubbing the back of my neck and repeatedly squeezing shut my strained eyes.