I Saw the Sky

>Here in the Pacific Northwest, we are positively giddy about the dramas that play out in our skies. Especially when the grey curtains pull back, and the stage is filled with light. On Wednesday, the Puget Sound was covered with fog (or perhaps clouds, not yet awake?), clinging to the water. From the hillsides above, it looks like the place that time forgot. I drive down Bank Road, headed east, toward the sunrise and the Cascade Mountains. The sun is still behind the peaks, and the sky is a kaleidoscope with layers of pink and blue and umber. On the ferry, I look toward the southern sky and try to name the varieties of blue. Robin’s egg blue. Steel blue. Water-color blue. Cobalt blue. Summer-sky blue. And, of course, University of Michigan blue. There are others on the ferry, who, like me, stare at the sky and grin. . .and talk to themselves, or no one in particular, “Will you look at that.”
In Seattle, there were 100 people waiting outside Costco, fifteen minutes before the doors open. Plus me. So 101. Everyone has jockeyed for position with a shopping cart, so think of the commencement of a NASCAR race. I ask the employee at the return desk if this is normal. “The days before Thanksgiving. Are you kidding? Yesterday was insane too,” she tells me. “They’re all buying their Thanksgiving pies.”
“Buying?” I ask. “What happened to baking?”
She laughed. “I don’t know anyone who has time to bake. Do you?”
I was going to tell her that I knew a good book about Pausing that Costco should sell, but my turn was up. “So, do you mind the crowds?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “I’m glad to be at work. I’m lucky. Plus, I’m in a good mood today. This morning I woke up and saw the sky. Boy, did that ever help!”
“I know what you mean,” I tell her. “I saw it. And it helped me too. Have a great Thanksgiving.”