The pink clouds found reflection in the snowy landscape.

So far, I’ve been sparing you the umpteen million pictures of clouds I tend to take. Like Amélie, I love to take pictures of cloud formations & any striking colors they might mirror from the sun. Sometimes, I’m lucky, finding spectacular sunrises or sunsets, so I try to be observant & run outside if I catch something unusual.

An evening sunset from the farm.

You could say I’m kind of a pink cloud connoisseur, as these tend to be the ones I really seek to capture. There’s just something magical, other-worldly about them. Since childhood, I’ve imagined pink clouds tasted like cotton candy, pillowy & sweet-smelling. I’d pretend I could live on one, in a castle like Cosette in Les Mis. And this was well before I ever heard the musical.

Another sunset.

When looking at paintings of sunsets or sunrises, I used to balk at some of the colors used, thinking one would never see a hot pink sky or peach-colored cloud. But life is stranger than art it seems. When you gaze upon a sunset, you notice a spectrum of colors you’d never think existed outside of art supplies.

Clouds from the back deck.

Sting wrote a song “Lithium Sunset,” singing about how an observer can actually absorb unfiltered yellow light into the eyes, which gives the brain with a lithium effect, purporting that this is one of the natural benefits from gazing upon the rising or setting sun.

Pretty contrast between cloud & sky.

Sky-gazing can be therapeutic. In war literature from Great War, a common trope involved sky-gazing and cloud imagery, since soldiers couldn’t escape the horrors of the trenches. All around them were terrible sights & smells & smells, so the only escape could be found in looking up & away. Dreaming of a different world, a different reality.

Sunset at the farm.

For introverts, staring at clouds & sky can provide an outlet, a way to soothe the soul. We are all connected under one sky, one atmosphere. There’s the promise of something expansive, something beyond, something we may not yet understand. And that something sparks creativity & art & dreaming. Well, at least for me.

Sunrise from the backyard.