today was the best day in terms of photographing clouds. you turn to one direction and you'll see a different cloud formation against a very blue sky -- some just wisps, others like brush strokes, others enormous burst of pure white and then there's the threatening blacks. i like those that look like cotton candies that remind you of those bygone days when our parents would bring us to the fairs, when clowns aren't scary but really funny and entertaining, when the games were not so easy that you get a promise of cotton candies win or lose; when everything else is about family fun. i only have a very vague recollection of myself on my father's shoulders, my mother walking ahead of us with my brother in tow. how my father hit a target perfectly with some kind of gun, despite my weight on his shoulder, i suppose i got my tenacity from him, only i think i turn out a better person that him (ask my siblings, i am!).
and then just as we were about to go home, the white fluffy clouds turned into the bad cumulus ones, dark and menacing, and delivered a sudden downpour, and we ran the two blocks or so length of the street to get to our home. mother despite her short legs but being fast on her feet, beat my father's long strides to get home first.
when i first heard joni mitchell's song "both sides now" the part that says
"I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It's cloud's illusions I recall
I really don't know clouds at all"
it always reminded me of that one special day, so long ago and so vague that sometimes i doubt myself that i should remember it or did it ever happen. a lot of people over the years told me that we cannot remember so far back in our young minds. only one doctor ever told me that it is possible to remember, even the moment we come out of our mother's womb. that you wouldn't want to remember anyway.
view from the bus stop which is just "around the corner" from my building. you realize of course, that i am good at stretching things when it comes to these challenges. 😜
