Silence, suburbia, storms & sky

It's growing on me, this sub-urban silence. Yesterday I was sitting on the couch, watching a storm swell outside between our flowing white living-room curtains. There is something about a dark gray sky and the sound of nothing. It's comforting. It reminds me of what was and what will be.

When Melanie got home from work we decided to go for a walk, despite the impending storm. We got to the top of the hill and across the busy street before the first drops started to fall. Drizzle turned into downpour and soaked shoes turned into soaked selves. The worst of it came from passing cars who sped through puddles and sent up arcs of rain water that slammed us from the side. But I loved every second of it. My best experiences here seem to happen in rain storms.

The rain is magical because it can turn even these dirty city streets into something hauntingly ethereal. Last night, the effect of that bulging jaundiced sky helped, too.

As we neared our destination the sky melted from a stormy gray and yellow to a mellow blue and pink. As I walked with my gaze fixed westward, Melanie asked, "Why do you think you're so passionate about the sky?"

I laughed and told her the story of my junior year of college. The year I lived in a shadowed basement apartment with a bedroom window that faced an indomitable slab of gray concrete. The year I grappled with darkness, within and without. The year I found comfort only when I was standing beneath a wide sky that promised something more.

That affinity for the sky has become part of my identity, as strange as it may sound. I find so much peace in billowing clouds, in glowing sunsets, in silhouettes against the horizon. I always imagine myself atop mountains or skyscrapers, wondering what the view is like up there.

In Thailand they called me Jenna-pa. It means heaven.
In English they call me Jenna. It means little bird.

I like to think there's a connection there.