Seeing Clouds from Bothe Sides Now

Seeing Clouds from Both Sides Now

Recently I have been paying much more attention to the clouds that daily srurround my mountain home. In all types of weather and all times of the day, they lure my vision upward. As a kid I think I was more concerned with the physical things around me, the tangible things, the here and now things. The trees and the grass, flowers, and butterflies, bugs, and other creatures drew my attention.

When I grew into adulthood I began noticing clouds more. I watched as they darkened denoting a coming storm and causing me to be sure the car windows were closed up and the windows at home were closed down. Growing even older, I began to fly on planes. My first was the year I flew to Great Lakes for boot camp. I was so nervous that I don’t recall much of that flight, because my stomach was still recalling the speedy elevator rides in the Federal building in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While I was in the United States Navy I flew from Great Lakes to and from Pennsylvania, to and from Orlando, Florida, to and from Iceland and back to Pennsylvania.

When I was much older, I flew from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to Sacramento, California with a friend. By this time, I can remember the clouds being interspaced with clear spaces where I could see the earth below as the miles rolled by.

Over the past several years I have noticed the wide variety of clouds looking up at them. I’ve seen clouds that look like ostrich feathers and ones that look like solid walls of velvety white to thick angry grays. Clouds may scurry by looking like stringy, dirty threads or tumble along like snow-white fluffy sheep. The shapes are fluid sometimes oozing slowly into fantastic mythical beasts and other times shifting quickly into castles or bizarre dreamlike shapes.

These thought about clouds barely touches the imaginative nature of clouds, but when I stir in the wide color palette of the sunrise or sunset, my thoughts explode.  Grays may lighten into brilliant reds, glowing oranges, or richest golds. Black glowering clouds may be lit by intense lightning strikes or they may evolve into a thrilling rainbow arch. Each time I think I’ve seen the extent of what clouds can do, God proves me wrong and will show me something new.