I distinctly remember the first time I fell for the sky. I’d admired it before ~ you know, its multi-colored sunsets, fun-shaped clouds, and dreaming up into the soft blueness of it all. But some years back on a trip to Kenya, I fell over-the-top crazy in love.

The vastness, the magnificence, the stunning glory! What a sense of freedom, of breath, of grandness and possibility under that enormous African sky. Scrumptious! I fell pretty hard, and never recovered. Then I fell a second time, in Arizona, and there was no turning back.

Living near the ocean most of my life, I’ve had ample opportunity for drinking in “big sky ” ~ but while that too is endless and beguiling, I guess it’s true that there’s nothing like your first love; or the feeling you’ve been kissed by the sky.

When I’m out and about here in my own neck of the woods, I see buildings and lawns and cars and kids and dogs and trees. The sky is almost an afterthought. It’s just “there” ~ like the stars are there ~ up there, out there, steadfast and constant, serving a purpose without asking much in return. No pomp or circumstance, no royal carpet inviting your senses to wander in its wide open spaces, no obvious offering of lofty shelves for stacking your dreams.

But now and then I remember to look up while I’m walking, smile upwards when sun shines, gaze upwards when the moon glows, and then I realize it’s the same sky I fell in love with before.

For sure, East Coast heavens share different colors and express different moods than African ones, but it’s all one sky; it never left ~ I just have to look harder to find it. And when I do, I breathe a little more deeply, I feel a little less encumbered, and remind myself to look up more often.

{All paintings oil on canvas / Patricia Saxton}

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