Cloudy Skies : Inspiration or Melancholy?
The week-end was fabulous in terms of weather in the Bay Area. The rain-washed Earth was beginning its early spring blooms. The trails were scented heavily with sage, eucalyptus, and the occasional squashed lemon or orange. The clouds made for a perfect backdrop – lighting wise. Cloudy skies do give the best pictures even if the blue skies lift one’s spirits up better. Feeling in the mood for a bit of rumination or deep thought? Cloudy skies are there for that. Or maybe it is the other way around- the melancholic strain inspired by the cloudy skies. Either way.
The son and I started off on a bike ride when the skies were cloudy, threatening rain. We pedaled, each lost in our own thoughts, when some fat droplets reminded us of the rainy day forecasts. The son, always the mature one, when it comes to things like this, insisted we turn back, and so we did. Though, I did try my whining first: “Let’s try for some more time – maybe it is just a drizzle, and we shall be ready for it to break into mild blue skies afterwards. “
The skies doubled down, and so we started back away from the lakes, and the bay, towards our home.
But the rains were taunting us. They came, and then didn’t. Then came again and didn’t again.
By the time we made it home, the clouds had said their good-byes and didn’t shed a single raindrop for another 2 hours.
Oh well.
The Next Day
The next day, I set off on my own. This time, the cumulonimbus clouds had given way to cumulus clouds, and the day felt bright, clean and inviting.
I biked on. By the river. To the bay. Through the bay, and finally emerging on some hills.
It was beautiful. I had the trail to myself. Probably because most folks had attempted and wrestled with the ‘will-it won’t-it’ the previous day, and decided to stay indoors. I felt my spirits rise, like the ebbing of the bay waters. I sang – my pitch nowhere as shrill and clear as the blackbirds, and nowhere as cacophonous as the ubiquitous geese, but enough to make me happy.
I am a sap when it comes to nature. Every one knows it. Everyone indulges me with it when I get going. But even I felt all nature had a purpose that day: a purpose to make those outside to feel grateful, to feel fulfilled. The mustard flowers threw their stalks back and danced with that intent. The blackbirds sang with a kind of devotion that saints wish for. The deer grazed looking at you as if daring you to find fault with a day like this.
What would Mary Oliver have done?
Mary Oliver would’ve written a book by the time she came back. That’s the sort of day it was.
“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” — Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
What was to be done with such a sense of purpose? I yielded and gave myself up to this – pedaling, humming, looking every which way. One time, I wobbled looking at the hawk overhead and straying off the trail. I swear the hawk smirked. I heard it’s laugh or cry.
Another time, the heart gave a few lurches and sputtered and stuttered, as I spotted a dead snake on the trail. “Would you have preferred a live one?” whispered Mary Oliver, and I genuinely had no answer to that. I shoved my hammering heart back to its spot behind the ribs and pedaled on. Eyes resolutely keened away from the dead snake.
When finally I reached home, sighing with the contentment, I knew the aching muscles were a small price to pay.
What is your favorite post-rain activity?
Nourish-n-Cherish 