A vintage napkin from 2002.
I love the sky, especially here in Oklahoma. When people ask me if I miss California I usually say the landscape is better there but the skyscape is much better here in Oklahoma.
It is easy to see the landscape; it is permanent for the most part, it will always be there, and so we feel like we can define ourselves in relationship to it. It is like a non-fiction story of history or science. We believe we are hearing a true story, something real.
But the sky is a different story. It is a novel. It is a poem. It is not telling us something we can rely on to be true because it disappears and may not come back. If it does it will be different. How can we rely on the sky? But isn’t it true, it is always changing yes, but it is always returning as well. It comes back and becomes something you knew before, the clouds aren’t exactly the same, but they remind. It is the reminder as in a novel, of your own life, your own history. It is a poem that gives hints, that gives bread crumbs reminding you of something else, a remembrance.
I love the sky. It feeds my eyes every day.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“The sky is the daily bread for the eyes.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1803-1882, American Essayist, speaker and philosopher