Clouds never asked us to monetize them. They never tracked our attention or offered us a discount code for enlightenment. They just floated there, indifferent and majestic, waiting for us to remember we have eyes.
What you described isn’t nostalgia. It’s recovery. Soul rehab by vapor.
May we all be blessed with more evenings where awe is free and the Wi-Fi is weak.
Virgin Monk Boy
(devotee of drifting things and the holy art of staring at nothing in particular)
I love this post. You tapped into my existential crisis today — how one of my greatest life pleasures has been lying in the grass watching the clouds and how today lying in the grass is considered a hazardous and borderline self-destructive activity (at least in my region) due to ticks and Lyme. People say to spread a blanket, but it’s not the same.
Oh, man, Kate, that does suck. Someone should invent some sort of barrier that allows you to feel the grass in a tick-free way. I know lots of folk who’ve gotten Lyme and it’s no joke. Hope you find an alternative method of cloud-gazing.
I think I read newspapers and magazines before phones. It’s been ages since I read the New Yorker cover to cover. As for the clouds - cloud watching is a beautiful way to be still and awed. I occasionally compose my epitaph, and recently landed on ‘Look up!’ Maybe there’s a poem I can fit it into. I could write it in Greek or Latin so that it looked impressive and mysterious but I’ll be too un mysteriously dead to impress anyone.
That would be an amazing epitaph, Elizabeth! I’m good at looking up enough to see people and flowers and cats and trees. Just need to crane my neck a little further sometimes!
And this is one of the things that makes you a writer!
Thanks, Anjali!
Clouds never asked us to monetize them. They never tracked our attention or offered us a discount code for enlightenment. They just floated there, indifferent and majestic, waiting for us to remember we have eyes.
What you described isn’t nostalgia. It’s recovery. Soul rehab by vapor.
May we all be blessed with more evenings where awe is free and the Wi-Fi is weak.
Virgin Monk Boy
(devotee of drifting things and the holy art of staring at nothing in particular)
Thanks, Alesksander. As always, you say it so well and so beautifully. The clouds are always up there waiting for us.
I love this post. You tapped into my existential crisis today — how one of my greatest life pleasures has been lying in the grass watching the clouds and how today lying in the grass is considered a hazardous and borderline self-destructive activity (at least in my region) due to ticks and Lyme. People say to spread a blanket, but it’s not the same.
Oh, man, Kate, that does suck. Someone should invent some sort of barrier that allows you to feel the grass in a tick-free way. I know lots of folk who’ve gotten Lyme and it’s no joke. Hope you find an alternative method of cloud-gazing.
Lovely post.
Thanks, Barb!
You are fab! I too love looking at the clouds but no longer take the time to do it. Maybe now I will. 💗
You’re more fab! We should look at the clouds together! Maybe over a glass of wine at Vintage Lanes!
I think I read newspapers and magazines before phones. It’s been ages since I read the New Yorker cover to cover. As for the clouds - cloud watching is a beautiful way to be still and awed. I occasionally compose my epitaph, and recently landed on ‘Look up!’ Maybe there’s a poem I can fit it into. I could write it in Greek or Latin so that it looked impressive and mysterious but I’ll be too un mysteriously dead to impress anyone.
That would be an amazing epitaph, Elizabeth! I’m good at looking up enough to see people and flowers and cats and trees. Just need to crane my neck a little further sometimes!
ahhhhhhh, “they have been there all along.”