Admiring clouds

I may as well be sitting smack dab in the middle of an oil painting. But no, I'm sitting in my car, music playing, window rolled down, waiting for the bridge to rise and the boats to pass below. I'm staring at the clouds.

Dramatic layers of texture, shades of eggshell and charcoal, pillowing high above. I sit, dreaming of running through tunnels of cloud, of dancing barefoot on pillows, of swimming in billowy seas, of grabbing fistfuls and tossing them in the air. Cloud-ball fights.

I think of young children, of one mom who recalled with fondness a time when she stepped out the front door in a hurry with her small son, him fresh with new language. Pointing up, his voice filled with awe, he exclaimed, "Look, mommy! Sky!"

Where I sit in the car, I feel like that little boy, want to reach my arm out the window and strain to touch, "Look, everyone! Clouds!"

Is this part of perspective, learning to become small again to see things so big?

The bridge rises, engines start, cars creep forward, and I whisper thanks.