Head in the clouds.

    

Anybody who knows me is aware that a) I am a sucker for classic literature, and b) I love gazing upon a pretty sky. In 1807, William Wordsworth published his lyric poem “Daffodils.” The poem tells of a chance encounter he and his sister had experienced years prior with seeing a field of daffodils along the edge of a forest. However, that fact bears no relation to my encounter this evening. To start the poem, Wordsworth recounts how 

“I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills.”

Perhaps, I am likeminded in the sense that I, too, am often in the pensive mood Wordsworth mentions many lines down. There is no doubt that my thoughts are preoccupied much of the time. I am grateful, however, that I can emerge from my introspection to write and simply be.

I was lost in my reverie earlier this evening as I sat on the front porch. It was wonderful to sit with no distractions. Heaven knows, with the amount of work I have to catch up on, there is no time for me to have my head figuratively or literally in the clouds. Instead, I was drawn to the display that Mother Nature was putting on in all of her glory. I hopped in the car with no clear destination in mind. All I knew was that I wanted to catch some shots of the sky without the distraction of the streetlights, houses, and power lines obstructing the views. As I drove down Grenfell, I instinctively started to head to Jean Lake and capture some shots of the sky there. The views have changed so much since the kids and I used to go there years ago. Signs now dot the shoreline, and a playground is on the grassy field. It used to be the perfect spot for kite flying.

Once I had my fill of the surroundings, I got back into the car and drove as the sweet strains of Matthew Good Band, and Radiohead kept me company. Again, with no direction in mind, I kept a steady pace down the highway - enraptured all the while. I have to say that this was perhaps one of the most intense feelings of peace I have experienced in months. Without a timeline and nowhere to go, I kept chasing the majesty of the magnificent sky. Other stops along the way included behind the college and the parking lot area down from the float plane dock on Tamarack. The scenery, and the resulting shots, did not disappoint. 

I do not know if either of my children recalls this, but often when we would hang out or play in the backyard when they were little, I would encourage them to lay back and look at the clouds as they passed by and talk about what they saw. I, too, did that as a child. Even as an adult, I am not opposed to getting lost while looking at the shapes of the clouds in the sky. I cannot help but be affected by the tranquillity and simplicity of it all. As essayist and philosopher Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise.” This evening’s excursion reaffirmed just that.