Look up

Big Frank suggests that you raise your eyes skyward. Not now - all you're going to see is the ceiling. However, when you step outside look up and see what's happening up there. There is an ever-changing display of clouds above you - always! They take on thousands of different shapes and offer a never-ending source of delight. One good way to demonstrate how much you value your life is by remembering and cerishing the small parts of life. Clouds may not be all that small, but they generally play a small part in most people's lives. Look up, capture that sky-scape, describe the clouds, and add value to your life. Annie Dillard in her wonderfully odd book For the Time Being, which, among other things deals with birth defects, human population statistics, Eastern European Judaism, sand, the life and work of Teilhard de Chardin (paleontologist and priest), Emperor Qin and his clay soldiers also writes quite a bit about CLOUDS. Dillard brings together a steady stream of reports of clouds, recorded by John Muir, John Constable, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and many others. “Why seek dated clouds?” Dillard asks. “Why save a letter, take a snapshot, write a memoir, carve a tombstone?”

If you really want to get into this cloud stuff then go to The Cloud Appreciation Society. They have a wonderfully large collection of photos on clouds categorized by cloud types. The society has members from countries all over the world and they all send in photos, creating a mind-boggling sampling of those white fluffy formations that ride above you - always. Look up - there they are. If you look every day you will, as the people in Dillard's book, find recognizable figures. Do you remember as a kid lying on your back and pointing out rabbits, and elephants, and mountains, and your uncle's nose, and the outlines of countries, etc. etc. Clouds are still at it - go take a look.