Reading clouds
Some people read tea leaves, others find understanding in reading palms, and a few interpret tarot cards. My mother read clouds.
She studied them by the way they floated on windless days and admired the gentle breezes that could turn into blustery chaos in the blink of an eye.
I remember when I was about 5 years old. She’d take a blanket, and we’d spread it on the grass and look up at the blue sky and the clouds suspended above us. The world drifted by before her eyes in a slow-moving panorama of shapes, almost like a carousel overhead. She’d point up and ask if I could see dragons, angels, fluffy birds with wings or playful kittens batting at white puffs. She’d point to a majestic cluster in the sky and tell me it resembled Mount Rushmore, which meant nothing to me at the time. Above all, she was keenly aware of whether the sky would change its disposition from a sunny day to flashes of lightning, creating foreboding shadows and coloring our world with rain.
My mother would watch the clouds above and know whether I’d be fine playing outside or whether it was time to grab umbrellas before a sudden downpour on a hot day.
As I grew more adventurous and my world became larger, she’d poke her head out the door and say, sounding like Don Kent, the weatherman on WBZ, “It’s going to be a nice day. There are unstrung pearls above us.”
In her language, that meant cotton-puff clouds spaced evenly across the sky like ducks floating by. I never questioned her interpretations. I respected her understanding of the skies because I’d seen it proven too many times. Over the years, her gentle prodding made me a believer, but rest assured, I was never going to be a weather girl.
Ironically, she never spoke much about her interpretations, nor did I. It was our sacred secret. She believed people might think she was crazy. Some things are better left unsaid.
Nowadays, people are less shy about sharing vivid dreams, premonitions, intuition and other gifts they believe they were born with. Today’s world seems more accepting of those experiences. We are all born with gifts. Some people keep theirs close to the vest.
moon no matter what time of day it was, even when it was faded or only the faintest sliver in the sky. I used to tell him it was his superpower, and like every little kid, he loved having “super vision” at only 3 years old.
I’m more of a watcher than a reader. I believe we all have the ability to offer a hug or a prayer when we see someone in need of compassion or a kind word. A smile does more than we can imagine. I’m a writer and a painter, mostly whimsical, and I seldom paint intricate clouds. There’s actually a cloud appreciation website that’s rather intriguing.
You can’t really make mistakes when you paint a cloud. It may look strange at first and never seem to resemble anything, but if you wait long enough, you’ll probably see that very shape floating overhead someday. That’s probably one of the reasons I love art and teaching. Just when you think you’ve run out of imagination, all you have to do is look up at the sky.
