The Quarantine Sky
With everything going on in the world, I’ve sought out something that I can watch and not focus. Something natural and beautiful that allows me to get lost in my thoughts. While I’ve been staying at home over the last few months that escape has become the sky.
Nature has always been that escape. In times where travel isn’t possible, the sky through my window has made due. Opening the window and watching the sky changes your mind for those moments. Taking in the aroma and subtle rumble that comes with approaching rain and thunder. The crisp feeling on those cool mornings in early spring. The feel of the evening humidity after a long day of working in the air-conditioned apartment. Those little things that we maybe never noticed as we were going about our days before have become little moments of joy.
It used to be the weekend sunrises where I could stop, take in the sky, and change my thought process to focus on the beauty in nature. Ever since that fateful day in March when we’ve been working from home, its been the way to push my eyes to something different. Something outside the walls of the apartment. Something further beyond the computer screen, the TV, books and magazines.
Sitting and watching clouds billow up as updrafts drive them in the heat of summer afternoons. Watching the sun fade away on the painterly wisps in the upper reaches of the sky at the end of long days. Regardless of the time of day that I have, it’s a peaceful escape. Without the real ability to constantly be out in the world it has been the respite to wonder at the sky.
I forced myself to change my perspective and focus on the beautiful moments in the sky. Not the whole sky as I would have typically done but finding the pieces of the sky that intrigue me. The layers of sunsets that bring pastel pinks, blues, purples and the occasional reds and oranges into the same space. The deep greens and blacks that punctuate the summer skies of thunderstorms. The moving currents that drive our atmosphere. The moments where the rising crescent of the moon slips between the cotton candy clouds before the sun disappears
So much of this reminds me of my time in the midwest. Since moving east, I miss the horizon. My years spent in Missouri and Kansas, the sky was always accessible. It was big and wide. It was different than it is here. The times spent watching the sky remind me of those times. It reminds me of the bigger picture. The things beyond me.
