There’s just something about Albuquerque clouds. I have never seen them gather the way they do here. Some days they sit on top of the Sandia Mountains for hours creating dramatic views of fluffy gray against the brown and gold desert mountains. On the west side, sometimes they look just like clouds from the “Simpsons” – all puffy and white. I’ve seen them in real life the way they look in a few Georgia O’Keefe paintings, and I’ve witnessed them turn every shade of sunflower, tangerine, grapefruit and lilac, and a few times lately they looked just like pink cotton candy hovering above the city.
I knew yesterday would be a day to spend some time admiring the clouds. They’d been gathering over the mountains for hours, and by the time I got out of work, they were everywhere – white, puffy and moving with the wind. I’d planned to head to a trail near my house and go for a walk, and while driving there I turned to my left and saw a perfect heart-shaped cloud turned on its side. I wanted to take a picture so badly, but my car was in motion and by the time I could have pulled over to stop, that cloud had morphed into a blob. It only took two stoplights for it to change – two stoplights that decided to stay green for me, even though I wanted so bad for them to turn red.
This gave me some hope and an idea, though, that maybe once I got to the trail I’d be able to see other clouds shaped as hearts because they were moving and changing so quickly, and there were so many of them.
I parked my car and started searching immediately. I took a few pictures of the clouds before I saw any more hearts, then started on the path, walking slowly to take them all in. I kept looking behind me and to my sides because that’s where the best clouds were. Directly in front of me they were beginning to gather too closely and they were getting dark like they could rain.
I thought of my dad of course, and as the hearts began to appear for me, I had to wonder if he was messing with the clouds just for me. Can angels do that, I wondered? Could he read my mind? Was he learning the sciences of the sky, the earth, the clouds? It was definitely a nice thought.
I must have seen at least eight hearts within a half hour. I may have stretched my imagination for a few of them, but they were there for me. I decided that afternoon that we see what we want to see. If I hadn’t been looking, I would have missed all the hearts in the sky. For someone else, they wouldn’t have mattered at all. It’s all about perspective, and it’s all about choice. We choose if we see the good, the bad or the lovely. We choose whether or not we see something beyond what is presented to us, and we can choose to believe something bigger than this world is watching out for and making the world a beautiful place. Love is really in the air, we just have to seek it. The best part is when we do, it appears everywhere.
