Sat outside this morning in the swing and enjoyed the quiet, eating my breakfast bagel and watching all the birds on the feeders. The day was beautifully sunny with a cloudless azure sky. Mother Nature gets an a plus for her humidity makings today. I’d ponder in the swing for a while, sweat to death, then come back in to the reading chair in the air conditioning. Finally gave up the porch pondering and stuck to looking out the window perched in my reading chair.

Watched a small squirrel try to climb up a bare bamboo trunk. He couldn’t reach any of the leafy limbs to help him up. The squirrels in my yard are all kin to the famous Wallenda acrobat family. I watched the squirrels play tag yesterday in the top of the tall chestnut tree in my back yard, chasing each other from the thin bamboo limbs to the chestnut limbs and back again. They leap like they are reaching for the swinging trapeze bars and take wild, swaying rides on the slender bamboo branches.

My water oak is dropping dark yellow leave sporadically. I watch them spiral down and wonder if it’s fun to float down or is it scary like a roller coaster ride. I watched a Ginkgo tree on my college campus drop all its glorious leaves one fall. The trunk was surrounded by a sunshine yellow circle of leaves. For several days this one little leaf hung on, the only leaf left on the tree. I wondered was it afraid to let go or was it watching the world pass by, waiting for the perfect day to let go and be free. I actually saw that last little leaf fall as I walked to an English class. I day dreamed for a while in the classroom wondering what the symbolic meaning was in watching that last leaf fall to the ground. Did it finally give up and just let go or did it sail down in a glorious trip on a soft breeze to join the yellow carpet of leaves on the ground. A leaf falling from the branch of a tree in the fall symbolizes the complete cycle of life. My grandmother Lane died that fall. Maybe she was the one leaf holding on to life, waiting for her perfect sunset.

Went back outside after supper and it was pleasant enough for porch sitting. The sun was saying good night, laying her head down on a turquoise horizon in a blaze of orange and yellow, painting the clouds raspberry and light purple. The waxing crescent moon was tacked in the sky between wisps of pink cotton candy clouds. I love to watch the cirrus clouds get painted at sunset. Tonight they looked like huge bird feathers, their thin barbs stretched out, dragged across an art palette’s puddle of pale pink watercolor. Wondrous to see but lasting only briefly before they melded together.

I’m thinking our life is a lot like the sky. We’re born in a beautiful sunrise and die in a glorious sunset. Like the sky, life can be both beautiful and cruel. The sky can be magnificent in it’s beauty or threatening with dark purple thunderheads and vicious wind. The sky can’t be azure blue and cloudless every day. Some days we’re happy and joyful in our clear blue sky but storm clouds will inevitably darken the horizon and the winds of trouble will blow into our lives. But these storms don’t last forever. These experiences make us appreciate the blue skies. No matter how dark our sky turns we know with our faith the clouds will part and the sun will shine again. What a wonderful promise!

“Only from the heart, can you touch the sky.” – Rumi