The lantern swells in your hands, and then you let go

When the sky lantern is taken in hand it is flat and cool, the thin cotton paper a little like a deflated balloon. Crouching to spread it open, lighting the fuel block at its centre, then waiting. The lantern begins to swell slowly, the air heating bit by bit, the weight in the palm vanishing bit by bit, the hot air leaking from its base carrying the smell of just-burnt cotton wadding. About ready — let go. The lantern rises, over the people around, over the rooftops of the old city, into hundreds of lanterns, no longer any telling which is one's own. That moment is hard to describe, only very quiet — there were so many people about, yet the sounds seemed all to vanish together somewhere.

Yi Peng is the festival of the Lanna people of northern Thailand, on the same night as Loy Krathong — one going to the sky, one to the water. Releasing a sky lantern is not merely romantic: in Lanna tradition, what the lantern carries off is the past year's ill luck, troubles and the things one cannot let go; watching it rise, shrink and vanish is to hand those things over with one's own hands. It is also a merit-making wish — the wish made drifts up to the sky along with the lantern.

By the old city's moat people release lanterns all night, no ticket needed, the mood quite natural. That night there were four of us — my closest friend and I, both mothers raising a child alone, each leading her own daughter by the hand. The two little girls put their heads together, propping open a smaller lantern between them, clumsy-handed, dissolving into laughter. My friend and I stood behind watching, not saying much. These years had not been easy for either of us, and to have pulled off a trip of four like this felt, in itself, like winning a prize.

Before the release, my friend crouched and wrote a few words for her daughter on the lantern's shade, very small. I asked my daughter what she wished for; she thought a long while, and in the end wrote only "Mum, don't be so tired." Looking at that crooked line of writing, my eyes suddenly stung, and I quickly looked up and away — all around, thousands of lanterns were rising one after another, just in time to hide a face that, for a moment, could not speak.

On the night wind was heated air and the scorch of cotton paper, mixed with a little cool drifting off the river. The four of us let go at once, watching those lanterns rise side by side, smaller and smaller, into a sky full of light, no longer any telling whose was whose. The two daughters tipped their heads back and followed for a long time, necks aching, still loath to lower them.

My friend quietly reached over and held my hand a moment, saying nothing. What I came to remember in the end was not any one lantern, but that moment: two women raising children, each having held on a long time, and two little girls not yet old enough to understand, together setting the past year's hardship gently up into the sky. I think if you too bring the people you care about most to release a lantern, you will likely be like me — what drifts away is the ill luck, and what stays is these few people beside you.