I am currently driving the
R.V. for my mother and stepfather on a cross-county trip. The pair of
them are biking and my job is to be the support vehicle. One of the
nice things about driving only a few miles every day (so as not to
leave them in the dust) is that I get to explore the country while we
cross it. Unfortunately, the section that I got stuck driving for the
trip is from the Border of Texas (hot and flat) to the Oklahoma City
(hot and flat). While I simply could never understand why anyone
would want to live here, I am interested in how different their lives
are because of what the world around them looks like.
For one thing, their land
may be dusty, dry, and smelly, but the sky is always amazing. In
California, we have some beautiful sunsets, especially in San Diego
where I have my permanent home. However, we have very consistent
weather and our skies always look pretty much the same. It's either
bright blue, or cloudy with a chance of light rain. San Diegians
freak out when they think it's going to rain at all and if it is
raining they always say, “What awful weather!” I grew up in
Pollock Pines where if it rained, no one paid much attention because
at least it wasn't hailing or snowing. I was born in Arizona where if
it rained, it really did rain.
It was a monsoon-type storm with warm water and the locals were happy
to see it. In San Diego, they have consistently nice weather and
don't really seem to get how lucky they are that they don't have to
shovel their driveways in the morning just to get to work. Here in
Texas, at least during the spring, the weather is still quite warm,
but the cloud cover in the evening is quite enchanting. Because of
the constant wind on the prairie and the heat rising from the ground,
the clouds do little tricks and take strange shapes. Bites of the
bottoms of the clouds drag as if raining, and the edges seem to swirl
in circles like a calm tornado. I wound up watching the clouds for
almost half an hour the first evening I was here, just because they
were so different then the quick, flat, fog-like clouds of San Diego.
 |
| San Diego Clouds and Sunset |
The
Sunset too, was quite beautiful. Texas didn't have the deep red
colors that I am used to admiring in San Diego, but were a delicious
peachy color. Bits of pink streaks against the tan orange.
Complicated to explain, but breath-taking to behold.
Now
obviously when people think of Texas, they don't think much of the
sky. It has many historic sites, is known well for its rodeos,
sports, and riffle-happy citizens. But when I think of the sky, I
always thought of it as something that we all share- no matter where
we go. This is true to some degree, any where in the world we share
the same sky, but I never realized how different it would look. Just
three states over from my home in California, it behaves so
differently. Wind sweeps dust into the air, the clouds are animated
and fluffy, the sunsets are peachy and sweet, the stars come out
clear and bright (in San Diego the night sky is usually orange from
light pollution). This theme is similar to that of the nature theme
that I mentioned before, but it reminded me of how vast the world is
yet again. It's so complected and diverse, even every couple hundred
feet. There really is beauty to be found everywhere, if only in the
sky. Even sunset is different, but somehow just as beautiful. You can
study them your whole life and still they can surprise you.
 |
| Texas Sunset |
The
power and complexity of the sky seems to have heavenly powers. It's
no wonder Christians envisioned it as the place to ascend to once
their soul passes from this world. I don't know if that's really
true, but I do believe that it took a powerful, all-knowing artist to
create something so dazzling and colorful. No human artist or
scientist that I know, has been able to copy or explain it in such a
way that really does it justice.
No comments:
Post a Comment