I am discovering that the wisdom of aging comes with a slowing down, prompting me to sink into the moment at hand. That’s how I began to befriend the sky, conceiving of its presence as an immense blue canvas on which forces of nature paint an accounting of the day just as it is happening. The artist’s pallet holds the elements of light, wind, water, and temperature and produces not simply a representation of life as it is occurring, but the very reality that gives shape to my day, sometimes my very mood. From dawn to evening, night fall to daylight rising, the sky is my protective shell. I count on it being there – and it is – even if I don’t give this a single moment’s thought.

Gazing up at the curved canvas I am reminded of the constancy of change in life, the subtle ways my day, my world is being reshaped. Approaching fall in the mountains, it is difficult not to notice the dense fog that hangs over the early morning. I begin to anticipate, like clockwork, the warmth that will lift the cloud, unveiling the stretched blue fabric of my day. Today the clouds spread like a bed sheet, hanging low and teasing me with its dense gray appearance. Stratus could up to pranks. Will it rain on the roofers and then their work day will stop?

I favor the fairy streaks of high cirrus clouds that produce a light airy step in the day, but it only takes a turn of the head and sky is filled with white puffy cotton candy, the cumulus clouds that appear like mounds of whipped cream. I can quickly fall into my childhood memories, lying on the sand at the beach, naming the clouds by the images they depict.

One of my favorite Charlie Brown cartoons depicts Charlie Brown, Linus, and Lucy lying on the top of a hill. Lucy says “If you use your imagination you can see lots of things in the cloud formations. What do you see, Linus?” “Well those clouds up there look to me like the map of British Honduras…that cloud up there looks a little like the profile of Thomas Eakins, the famous painter and sculptor…over there …the impression of the stoning of Stephen…the apostle Paul standing there to one side.” Lucy replies, “That’s very good…what do you see in the clouds, Charlie Brown?” “Well, I was going to say I saw a ducky and a horsie, but I changed my mind?”

It is all a matter or perspective, isn’t it? Now I see great tears in the blanket that has hung overhead all morning; the brilliant blue canvas reappearing. My life is not separate from nature’s painting of the day; I am encouraged by the change that constantly takes place; I am delighted with the beauty, grateful for the warnings; overwhelmed with the thought that this protective embrace has been present for all generations of peoples. My ancestors stood under this sky. Now that’s a story I could tell.