How Much Time to Give a Cloud

October 29, 2010 Maria

What a glorious day in the sky. I started the morning with a walk (camera and dog in tow) to enjoy the clouds that were not rain clouds (nimbostratus or cumulonimbus) but the lighter more effervescent varieties of stratus, stratocumulus, and later--as the afternoon air warmed--a progression of steadily building cumulus clouds--fractus, humilis, mediocris, and congestus.

My problem was I didn't know how best to enjoy them today. Should I get out in the rowboat? Should I climb onto my roof? Should I bike to the park near the water tower? Throw and air mattress onto the lawn and just stare and stare? Would I enjoy the clouds more if were still or rowing, biking, or walking?

And for how long? All day would be nice and a suitable time to dedicate to such beauty. What about an hour? Or what about ten minutes every hour all day long? Today, a lifetime would not have been enough. Look at them! Look at the free show they put on! We all should have left our homes, schools, and offices today and gone outside to watch them, to give them a round of applause, and a standing ovation. Our hands should be raw and stinging from all the clapping the clouds deserved this day. And they were not yet pink or orange. Just white and gray. But what lovely, scrumptious whites and grays.

I grateful, in awe, and apparently living inside a Mary Oliver poem.

I am not sure what I thought was going to happen with a full day of cloud worship. Could I love the clouds more than I already do? Will I be uplifted or transformed somehow if I say they beautiful and marvelous over and over like a mantra? Will I get into heaven?
I knew by noon today that whatever I did today was not going to be enough. The clouds would not get the attention or praise they deserved from me. Of course, the clouds couldn't care less about me or my crush on them. So, resigned, I gave them as much time as I could on a busy day (of doing things not as important as praising clouds.)
Here is the problem: I cannot give back to the clouds what they give to me. I cannot reciprocate. This is not a two-way street. So, I will gather in their glory, breathe in their beauty, and give it to you.