weather or not

The clouds have been very showy the last few days in Chicago. Rich in loft, puff in mist - and sort of amoeba-like in the way they've been playing around the sky. Yes, I know there is a whole taxonomy of clouds, and even a book that plays off that notion (highly recommended to me, but haven't read it yet). The Cloud Appreciation Society is alwasy a nice place to ogle some vapor if you are feeling lonely and the sky around you at the moment is decidedly too clear.

The recent past found me on a place from Leon, Mexico to Houston, Texas. There was a cute couple of Mexican kids sitting behind Xa and I and the boy of the pair was positively over the top with it all. He kept yelling in spanish at that early hour "we are in the clouds! look! Look, now we are above the clouds!. Look!" His excitement felt almost unreal - like on was on a TV show about a boy flying through the clouds for the first time. Though he shok my seat a little too much, it was charming for sure, and a reminder of how CRAZY AMAZING it actually is to fly through the clouds. In the movie Afterlife by Hirokazu Koreeda there is a scene where they try to recreate a moment from a man's life when we is flying through the clouds while piloting a little Cessna. The clouds are fashioned from cotton and they discuss at length with those (shooting the scene to film) if the the clouds feel right and true to the experience he had had. The memory of flight becomes as wonderful as flying itself as you watch the quiet man talk about them.

Speaking of the "afterlife," I submit that it is mildly creepy to think that stock photo companies actually have this as a classification category in their image banks. The cloud theme is dominant in the afterlife images from the site linked above, and of course devils and flames make their obligatory appearance as well. That seems in line with cultural tropes and our collective psychology maybe. Then again, other things also make an appearance, like a blind kitten with angel wings as well as a woman in a bikini spelunking. Hmm. Perhaps there is a religion out their offering a variation of the 72 virgins promised in a paradise after death?

Anyway - clouds. I think it is best to enjoy them now, even if there are really nice ones in the afterlife too. Even if after looking at them they rain on you, you can at least feel pleasure in having a bunch of liquid cloud poured all over yourself.