Clouds #2

When I arrived at Lehman College, (this is back in the day) it was a green, lush campus with smallish buildings scattered around. It must’ve been Fall when I first arrived, but what I remember was seeing students reading under trees; or seated at wooden picnic tables. Dirt paths weaved their way through freshly cut grass. And in the morning, when I first arrived, the grass was still wet with dew.

Yes, it must have been fall because I quickly found a tree for myself, and sat down on the wet grass with my back pressed against the bark. And for a few moments I looked up through the branches at the sky and let myself look for shapes and forms. I usually saw the same things: sailing ships, Indians in buckskin and feathered head dress; puffy automobile tires which might turn if I stared long enough.

I wore a wristwatch with a faux leather strap, and metal hands that each had a tiny slit that lined up with the numbers. It was a Timex, and it’s biggest feature was that the dots above the numbers glowed in the dark. This was the time when transistor radios were being phased out for the Walkman.

Jump ahead a few decades and I’m meandering through the park, stopping every few minutes to look up at the clouds, hoping for a good formation with lots of cracks and crevices that might look like something if you stared at them for a while. That was pretty much the secret of having a good sky for daydreaming. And the winds felt good against my arms, and the clouds were moving and reshaping quickly when this arrangement was tossed for me.

When I came back home to look at the image, the infrared had done the trick. Although it wasn’t anywhere near as pleasant to stare at the screen, I could begin to make out figures in the clouds, which was really all I wanted.