The Alien Parade

Dear Ones,

Every Wednesday and every Sunday at 7 p.m., when the night has faded into its darker self, the world in front of where I am staying changes its mind.

It’s the same street. The same ocean. The same condos and the same little holes people live in along the seawall. The same headlines waiting on everyone’s phones like a clenched fist.

And then, right on time, they come.

Bicycles first. Not just bicycles, but bicycles dressed up like a dare. Strings of lights. People of all ages with glowing wheels. Costumes that make no practical sense: green aliens, dancing bears, and whatever else a person can invent when they decide they’d rather be ridiculous than numb.

They ride in a line, then a wave, then a loose, laughing swarm, and it’s impossible not to look up.

People spill out onto balconies and front steps. Lawn chairs appear like props in a play we all secretly agreed to attend. Someone hoots. Someone hollers back. Someone whistles, then does that loud, happy yell that sounds like a kid who forgot they were supposed to be grown up. (Usually me.)

Every Sunday and Wednesday evening, we’ve been given permission.

Permission to make a spectacle out of nothing.

Permission to admire something fun.

Permission to smile and holler, way to go!

We don’t talk enough about how rare that is now.

Most of the time, the world asks us to be protective, to choose a side. To be afraid and efficient. Productive. Correct. Measured. To turn ourselves into good little machines that absorb bad news with a straight face and still remember to schedule the dentist, answer emails, and keep the laundry moving.

But twice a week, a group of strangers rides by and says: nope, not tonight.

Tonight we’re going to show up and decorate our bikes like we’re eight years old and fearless.

Tonight we’re going to wear an alien on our back in public. People will get up from their couch, come out onto their balconies, and clap for us. They will hoot and holler, and it will make people happy.

Tonight we’re going to become a moving constellation—just long enough to remind everyone there are still humans out there, under the stress and the fear and the news and the scrolling.

I didn’t realize how much I needed this twice-a-week alien parade until I began to anticipate it.

By 6:45, I start listening for the first hint of it: a distant cheer, the honking of horns, the boom of the familiar music they play, the whistles, a laugh that carries. My body registers it before my brain does, calling me to get up, go outside, and participate. To stand and watch and cheer and clap.

It has become a ritual.

Not a religious one. Not an organized one. Nobody’s handing out flyers. Nobody’s making a speech or standing up for a cause. There’s no agenda beyond the simplest one: show up, glow a little, move together through the dark.

And the people watching—the people, like me, who come outside and clap and wave and shout encouragement at strangers—they’re participating too. We’re all part of it. Riders and watchers. Ocean and street. The anonymous and the known.

It’s easy to think community has to be formal to count. Potlucks and meetings and committees. But I’m starting to believe community can be improvised—created in small, recurring moments we all agree to show up for.

Sometimes it’s just a pattern that repeats.

Sometimes it’s a shared expectation that something bright will pass through.

Sometimes it’s the relief of realizing you are not the only one who can’t hold the whole world in your hands.

There’s something tender about the effort, too.

They don’t have to do any of it. They could stay inside. They could keep their lights in a drawer and their costumes as an idea they never bother to become. But they choose the extra step: the tape, the batteries, the planning, the ridiculousness.

And the watching crowd chooses an extra step too: leaving the couch, stepping outside, making noise, lifting a hand to wave at strangers and mean it.

I think that’s what moves me. The effort. Not the perfection of it, not the coordination, not whether the costumes make sense. Just the decision to bring something to the street that isn’t another complaint or another warning or another weary shrug.

For a few minutes, the air changes.

People laugh. People clap. People call out compliments to a person dressed like a glowing bear wielding a pretend foil. People forget, briefly, to protect themselves with coolness.

And then it passes.

The bikes disappear down the road, lights bobbing farther and farther away until it looks like the ocean borrowed a handful of stars and let them roll along the edge of town.

Everyone folds their chairs and goes back inside. Balcony doors slide shut. The street returns to itself.

But something stays.

Not a solution. Not a cure. Just a small proof.

Proof that joy can still be made.

Proof that strangers can still agree on something harmless and good.

Proof that not everything has to be heavy to be real.

I don’t want to talk about the world tonight. I don’t want to rehearse what’s broken.

I want to talk about this: a ridiculous parade that happens twice a week, right on schedule, at 7 p.m. when the night has faded and most people are settling in. I want to talk about how, in a time when so many people feel alone, a line of lit-up bicycles can become a kind of belonging.

And I want to remember this the next time I feel myself hardening.

Somewhere out there, someone is taping lights to a bicycle.

Someone is digging an alien costume out of a closet.

Someone is choosing to be visible, ridiculous, alive.

And at 7 p.m., we’ll meet each other again.

Not to fix the world.

Just to keep our hearts & hands open.

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Notes:

The Hawaii Electric Light Parade is a free, weekly, family-friendly event featuring brightly lit bikes, scooters, and skateboards cruising South Kihei Road in Maui Hawaii Anyone can participate.

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My blessing for you:

May you find your way to the small, free joys.

May the road feel safe beneath you,

and the night feel kind.

May you glow, not to impress anyone,

but to remind your own heart

that light is allowed.

with love

Mary Ann

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