A startling moment as I drive up the hill; an encounter with clouds. They are cascading through the hills and across the road. Not fog, not a mist, but voluminous clouds crossing my path, gauzy animals rolling slowly along. It’s like encountering cattle on a country road, except these celestial vapor beasts are infinitely less expected. Descending to the depths I inhabit, they spill through the gaps in the green hills, winding their way to mysterious pastures.
At work, I take in the sight of daisies exploding over other plants in a flowerbed. My admiration is inexhaustible. I can look again and again to be filled with riotous joy. Only flowers have this power to fill the soul with unreasonable happiness. Nothing matters half as much as their white petals and indigo centers, dark green leaves and stems, yellow petals, and purple petals.
On my return voyage, the sky is bright and blue, the air is warm and comfortable. The clouds are no longer among the cars in the hills. They’ve ascended back to great heights, distant wisps far beyond the naked tree branches. At a stoplight, I look up at the nude limbs of tree friends reaching for the sun. I could stare up at tree branches forever, lost in their lines and vertices. In a moment of inverted vertigo, I feel as if I may fall up out of the sunroof towards the barren canopy, slip through the arboreal lattice into the unending sky.