Blue Dream of Sky

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes. --e. e. cummings

Our trip to Utah's mountains with their searing sunshine and bright, sunny days was a lovely change of pace.  But unlike most trips, I felt a little homesick.  The unrelenting blue sky, the full sun seemed to be tanning my skin into a leathery mahogany hide.

The sun in Utah is like a major character in a daily drama. The sun makes its presence and absence felt.  The Utah sun burns during he day with an intensity I've never felt.

If I'd stayed much longer, I think I'd start to look like the vegetation--a brown or yellow shell of myself.

When the sun sets, the atmosphere cools down immediately.  Temperatures, even in the mountains were hitting 90 degrees during the days.  At home, heat like that lingers into the evening.  In Utah, heat evaporates, the atmosphere too thin and dry to hold any heat once the sun goes down.

Prince Charming and I kept forgetting our jackets on our evening strolls. We'd shiver as we walked.

During the day, we sheltered under our broad brimmed hats and scuttled like beetles from one shade pool to the next, trying avoid direct contact with the sun.

At home, it's the air that suffocates with its clinging humid kiss. Here its the sun's rays that penetrate skin, feather, bone.

The long vistas here end everywhere with a

mountain, forcing one to look up, contemplating the veil of sky.

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” – Anonymous

Living in the Midwest, sky has dimension.

The lowest sky level brushes against the maples, hickories.  The old burl oak scratches and heaves in conversation through the medium of wind with the sky.

In the Midwest sky reaches from grass to heaven. Fog forms and descends to ground, lifts its skirts to form ruched, low-hanging flounces.

In the high middle, fleecy puffs of whimsy float.

In the upper sky, giant mountains of thunder heads build, majestic, glorious, fierce.

The Iowa sky is no veil, no thin coat of ultra-marine blue holding back the enormity of space and infinity.  The Iowa sky is solid.  Built in layers of dust, humidity, rian, lightening, thunder.  Birds swim in the Iowa sky, flashing white and silver like a school of fish in the great oceans.

In the mountains of Utah, there's only a thin coat of ultra marine between me and the cosmos. The air so thin and dry--brittle--it hurts.

My chest heaves, my heart leaps. I suck in what little air there is and hold it, waiting for the scrubby pine, the pinion oak, the quaking, clacking aspen to release another breath before I trade this used breath in.

“To my mind, the greatest reward and luxury of travel is to be able to experience everyday things as if for the first time, to be in a position in which almost nothing is so familiar it is taken for granted.” – Bill Bryson

Wishing you a wonderful weekend, Wonder Ones.