Waiting on the Sky
Today’s Flyover People column as seen in The Emporia Gazette.
Gray sky over Fraser Hall, K.U. Sept. 13.
WAITING ON THE SKY
John Mayer has a song called “Waiting on the World to Change.”
I spent the first two weeks of September waiting on the sky to change.
For a fortnight, we were stalked by nimbostratus clouds.
These are not your cheerful, coloring-book clouds. Nimbostratus have no sense of humor; they are dour and sullen, and apparently they had Superglued themselves to the sky.
And that overcast sky rained and rained; the clouds nearly drowned us.
From one horizon to the other, the concrete sky was impenetrable. There were no corners to the clouds, no edges, no cracks into which you could wedge a crowbar to break open the blue.
The layers of clouds piled up in the sky like a grandmother adding one more quilt to a child’s bed in the wintertime.
There’s a line in our state song, “…and the skies are not cloudy all day.” Don’t believe it.
For many days, no shadows fell upon the earth. We could only presume that the sun had been blindfolded and was being held hostage in a dark attic somewhere. I kept watching CNN for an update, but there was no report of a ransom note.
We who live on the prairie love our sky. It is as much a part of the landscape as the land itself.
While the earth gives us roots and plenty of soft grass on which we can curl our bodies and fall asleep, the sky gives us flight, imagination, a place to go with our eyes, a place to go with our minds.
We Kansans love the feeling of space that the open land provides, but a great deal of that sense of freedom comes from the infinite sky that fills our days and our nights. It is the blue sky that gives us our energy, the stars that give us our passion.
When the frumpy clouds move in and unpack their suitcases, some people actually enjoy the gray days. Some thrive on the cave-like feel of dark rain.
But not everyone. I feel claustrophobic after two days of overcast skies. Clouds are my kryptonite.
Standing between me and my power source, that swamp of wet clouds weakens me. And finally – after those two long miserable weeks – when the sun finally burned through the ropes and broke free from its captors, the glistening light beamed down in a brilliant ray, kissing me on the forehead. It was like being awakened by a handsome prince.
Now don’t get me wrong - I’m not a cloud-hater. I love clouds, but only the ones with ambition, only the ones that move.
Puffy cumulus, a whisper of cirrus, and even purple thunderheads - I love them all - because they come to pass. And also because they entertain me.
I could spend hours on my porch just watching the sky.
Clouds tumble and scamper, they evolve. They skid across the sky, they float. Wallace Stegner once called those cumulus clouds “navies of flat-bottomed boats.”
The sky gives us a never-ending scroll of murals - this is public art. Clouds tell us stories, and urge us to invent our own.
While on a recent road trip, in the cumulus hanging over the highway, I saw a bear with a book, reading to two nearby clouds, one of which looked like a boy and the other, a girl with pigtails.
It was a sweet, fairytale scene in the sky. Then a few minutes later, I glanced at those same clouds. The children were gone, the bear cloud was fatter - well, you can draw your own conclusions.
When clouds collide, there is no crashing sound, you see no cumulus limping to the sideline. Clouds merge softly, yielding their territory; they reshape themselves and sail away.
And moving on is what clouds do. Usually.
But when they settle in with their gray flannel wardrobe, you may have to spend a week or two, waiting on the sky to change.
Copyright 2008 Cheryl Unruh
I like this line. “These are not your cheerful, coloring-book clouds.”
You said it perfectly. I don’t think I ever truly appreciated the sky before living here. It was always obscured by other things. The sun rising over the mountains can be glorious, but the sky takes a backseat amidst such scenery, or at least has its thunder stolen. Ever since the rain stopped, I can’t keep from looking at the sky, almost as though I’m afraid that beautiful blue with the picture perfect puffs of cloud will disappear again. Maybe we need the grey skies and rain to remind us of how blessed we are with such lovely skies most of the time. The sky does seem a more vivid blue than it ever was before after each long period of rain.
I like this well-written sentence, PrairieAir. “The sun rising over the mountains can be glorious, but the sky takes a backseat amidst such scenery, or at least has its thunder stolen.”