Blue Sky

It’s too early in March to sit outside: chilly and windy. I felt like sitting outside. Sitting on a blanket reading Proust, taking breaks to stare at the sky.

Today the sky was an exquisite blue, striped down the middle with a jetstream. The shadows of branches wavered in the streets. The light was an amazing gold.

I live under a postmodern sky. I know that earlier sky only from paintings and from the poems and novels of writers like Willa Cather.

Of course, I shouldn’t idealize the 19th century. There was also Stephen Crane’s sky: the smoky, filthy sky of industrial New York.

Today’s sky was beautiful. It made me remember summers when, like Zonker in the old Doonsbury strip, my body burned in the sun and gradually faded to tan. Once I sat on the roof with a housemate on a space blanket--which made the light reflect more intensely so we could get a better tan. Disaster! I was red as a lobster for days afterward. The hats and gloves of the 19th century were obviously a sensible precaution, though now people make do with sunscreen.

I think of the sky as constant and people as blips upon the earth. We feel immortal, as though life will never change, as our bodies and minds skim time.

The sky changes. Human technology has altered the sky.

But the sky remains beautiful. Today’s blue was as brilliant as any summer day's.