Head in the Clouds

Just the most beautiful sky all evening. pic.twitter.com/F3u2aJ6xBc

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 28, 2017

You may have noticed that I love the sky.

I love the clouds, I love sunsets, I love storms, I love the moon and the stars.

When I was a little kid, I could spend long hours lying in the grass, looking up at the sky. In movies, this is frequently a device for conveying a child dreaming of being a pilot or an astronaut — and I imagine in real life there are a few pilots and astronauts, and flight attendants and skydivers and hot air balloon operators, who spent long hours looking up at the sky.

I never dreamed of a career in or beyond the clouds. I just looked at the sky because I love it.

To this day, I still spend as much time as I can looking at the sky, contemplating its contours and colors. It calms me.

Even in the midst of a window-rattling thunderstorm, when the sky sparkles with lightning and the air feel electric, the sky somehow soothes.

It encourages me to breathe. It makes me feel small, in a way that gives me perspective on what stresses me. It gives me a sense of place, when I am starting to feel unmoored.

"You and the clouds," Iain says. Because I am always looking up. Because I am always stopping in my tracks to admire the heavens. Because I am always exclaiming with breathless wonder, "Look at this sky!"

Look at this sky.

I look at the sky, different today than it was yesterday and different from what it will be tomorrow. There is something profoundly comforting to me in that.

Tomorrow will bring a new sky.