Cloud infrastructure

One of the things I love about Vermont is the clouds. Yes, the real clouds up in the sky. They’re magnificent.

I’ve loved clouds since I was a boy. I can remember in California looking up at the sky and wondering if we could walk or sit or lie on the clouds. They looked so puffy and soft and inviting.

In New Zealand, I don’t recall being enamored with the clouds—or not often. In doing a bit of research for this post, I came across an excellent article about clouds in New Zealand on The Spinoff. It confirms what I recall from my 27 years living there—that the skies in New Zealand are certainly beautiful but the clouds are different from what I recall from my childhood and what I’m so enamored by here in Vermont.

Presumably due to it being an island, the clouds over New Zealand seem to be wispy and more spread out across the sky. Aotearoa is after all “the land of the long white cloud”. It’s fitting.

The clouds in Vermont are different. The evoke strong memories from my childhood of big, puffy, majestic, well-defined cotton-ball-shaped clouds. Bright white with defined edges and shapes. Clouds you could sit on.

I don’t know all the scientific terms for them and maybe I’m glad I don’t as it might be a distraction from simply looking up at the sky and marveling at the beauty of clouds and their amazingness—the purpose they serve, the physics, and how they function. They’re magnificent.

I particularly love observing the big puffy clouds as they move and change shape with the air currents—something you can only do when you pause long enough to notice that they are constantly moving.

So, as you’re feeling burdened by the stresses and busyness of life, I encourage you to look up whenever you’re outside and take notice of the clouds. And take time to observe how they move and interact with each other and merge and separate and change shape.

If you don’t pause for long, they look static and it’s only when you take the time to observe that you’ll see them changing.

Feels a bit like a metaphor for life these days.