I’ve been a sky gazer for as long as I can remember.

I thought everyone was like this, but I know it isn’t so because when I’m exclaiming at the beauty of the cloud formations or colors, some just look at me and stare blankly.

I have always loved clouds.

When I was a small child living in Utah, I would lie on my back for what seemed like hours, watching the giant, bright white clouds move and merge across the sky. I felt like I could feel the earth move beneath me – I would almost get vertigo, although at the time I didn’t know to call it that.

In the Philippines, my cloud gazing happened night and day. The night sky was the deepest black sometimes, with no street lights to water down the depth of the darkness. On the horizon, the clouds were like ghosts, standing out in stark relief, like a black and white photo.

The sunsets were a pastel poem, with orange, pink, and lavender accentuating the edges of each ethereal formation. Combined with the tropical scents of plumeria and frequent rain showers, it paints a picture in my memory that fills my senses.

When I lived in Washington state, it was usually a grey sky, even if it wasn’t raining. The clouds were low, hugging the landscape in billowy fog, or just above the earth in a solid, water laden blanket.

When I moved from there to the Midwest, I fell in love with clouds with more intensity, having missed seeing them. Great storms would roll up out of no where, and the thunderous bellows that came from the depths of these giant formations were at the same time beautiful, and terrifying.

Along the gulf coast, the skies remind me of the Pacific – impressionistic palettes that transition into light clouds floating nimbly across the night sky.

Today my mind is troubled, and as I drove through the country to reach my destination, the expanse of sky caught my breath, as it often does.

Shafts of light pierced the platinum clouds, and the scope of it all against the fields left me feeling so small. It matched my hearts cry.

There is comfort there, though.

My memories are happy in this, even in the solitude.

I’m a tiny part of a bigger picture.