"Rows and Floes of Angel Hair, And Ice Cream Castles in the Air..."

Last night a rumbling, grumbling northeasterner came thundering into town raining raccoons and opossums this side of the pond.  The wind was screeching and Papa's windchimes, all four of them, were banging and ringing on the farmer's porch.  And here I sat at the computer, warm as can be, gathering my heart out.  Then it was up to bed, blue book in hand, to read quietly till my eyes gave out. 

This morning when I awoke it was a gray wet world.  Donning a coat over my pajamas, I ventured forth to walk Tuck down the driveway to our little road.  It was only a light warm rain.  Fallen limbs from pine trees, pine needles and colored leaves covered the road...no asphalt could be detected.  What a strange world to awake to this morning...no screaming banshees of the night...just complete silence.

Coming home after our stroll, I changed my wet socks and settled down to see what was happening on Gather.  Ninina became a grandmother yesterday and Tonia was celebrating her thirty-ninth birthday. Roy had some wonderful pictures of Newport in the fall.  A beautiful image of an egret caught my eye.  Magi had an incredible Trilogy of poems dedicated to Marianne.  

Not feeling creative or in the writer's mood, I only left comments on works of others.  Soon enough, Papa was awake, breakfast fixed and our Saturday morning chores were in progress.  Although only two people live in this house, it's truly amazing how cluttered it becomes during the work-week.  Books and papers are scattered everywhere....never mind the reams of dog and kitty hair.  Johns and showers need to be scrubbed, linens changed and clothes washed...all the normal things that working people do on the week-end.  I was extremely glad that it was a rainy day because had it not been, Papa and I probably would have headed into Boston to watch "The Head of the Charles Regatta".  

The morning passed, the chores done, a little gathering and then I settled down in the big overstuffed couch and read the afternoon away.  I don't know when, but at some point I fell asleep.  Waking up, I could see that the storm had passed.  Walking out on the deck that faces the pond was an amazing sight...almost as if a line was drawn in the sky...to the south the sky was gray with clouds...

  but facing the pond, an incredible sight...or at least I think so!

  Without thinking I started humming, trying hard to remember lyrics I once sung way back in the late 60's....a song I heard first in a coffee house in Cambridge by an unknown Canadian singer...Joni Mitchell was her name.
 

"Rows and floes of angel hair

         And ice cream castles in the air

                And feather canyons everywhere

                          I've looked at clouds that way.

But now they only block the sun

         They rain and snow on everyone

                So many things I would of done

                     But clouds got in my way.

I've looked at clouds from both sides now

          From up and down, and still somehow

                It's cloud illusions I recall

                      I really don't know clouds at all."

Such strange thoughts came tumbling through my mind....and began to clarify some of the readings I had done earlier in the day in "A Course of Miracles".  Could not clouds be a metaphor for the reality we think we experience each day.  What is our reality...

 is it this world all decked out in the most beautiful finery?

                                                   or is this an illusion?