Splip, Splat, Splop

I have always been in love with winter skies. I am not saying I do not love the blue skies of summer and spring; for one of my everlasting memories from childhood occurred when I stood beneath my grandparents' peach tree and looked upward through peach-blossom-pink blooms. The scene: rich pink against the deep blue April or May sky of western Tennessee. The beauty was shocking, never to be forgotten. And, there are few things more beautiful than stacks, piles, wisps, drifts, and billows of playful, floating fluffy clouds caressing the blue skies of May or June.

During wintertime I very much enjoy the variant colors. I used to think of them as egg shell colors, but most people know only two colors -- the two colors of commercially produced eggs: brown and white. Most do not know of all those multi-Easter-egg-colored eggs from the domestic heirloom chicken breeds, and maybe not even robin egg blue. I thought that might be a problem if I wrote about eggshell colored winter skies.

Then this winter it occurred to me that the many colors of winter skies actually were more like the colors of pearls. The Colors of Pearls: Gorgeous grays, silvery white, white, cream, peach, yellow, pink, rose, salmon, red, copper, bronze, brown, purple, green, lavender, gold, black, black with a green overtone, and blue. I have seen all of these in the moody and sometimes stormy, threatening winter skies and sunsets. I love looking at the sky. I gaze.

Our last snow was a few weeks ago. It was such a wet snow that the flakes were stuck together in such large, sloppy clumps that they made Splip, Splat, Splop sounds on the car's windshield where wipers were running rapidly. I was the one driving in spite of feeling the misery of a fresh, one-day-old cold and the twinges of myofascia pain that is frequently triggered by bad cold and other viruses. I had absolutely no business in the world being out there in that beautiful, windy, wet, cold snowstorm.

The reason for it was that: Husband-Best Friend-Chief Photographer had lost his wallet, and as he runs most of our errands it is imperative that we keep him behind the wheel legally. I was taking him to the office where they issue and renew motor vehicle operators' licenses, and to places he had visited recently to look for the errant wallet. Every chance I got I looked at the sky - a beautiful white winter sky - and thought: I must write about this sky. Now I have.