White Skies Summer

Much is weird about this summer. 

Global warming is rearing it's ugly fangs, giving us deadly heat in formerly cool parts of the continent, fires running amok out west (totally predictable once the beetles destroyed so many trees in the mountains these last few decades), the jet stream forms an omega squatting across half the country as if to announce "The End". 

This summer was to be our freedom from the pandemic, and while we are vaccinated, it turns out we're not a ubiquitous as I'd assumed we'd be. Too many covidiots are refusing to take advantage of their chances to become  a full part of the society they inhabit by not catching the virus themselves, not mutating it within their bodies, not sharing it with everybody in reach, not stretching our medical personnel beyond their limits one more time. They fear unreasonable things, listen to un-sane sociopaths with the $$$ agendas of con artists who revel in the profits gleaned from spreading their virulent poison and hate. Delta is the variant in the news, and while it is much worse than what we've gone through, more are already out there, no end in sight, perhaps not even possible to curb any longer. But the states have gotten smug in their recent success and have quit even reporting - for the most part - their cases. Hospitalizations are rising, and so are the deaths, number harder to obscure. The masks are still kept handy, while consciences are examined and judged on whether this coming round of deaths, predicted to rise exponentially, which would have been preventable, can be considered to be deserved.

This was to be the great get-out-and-away again, super post-covid vacation, and it was, kinda , but now nearly every day begins with yard work, to which my long deteriorating body has responded by becoming fitter than in over a dozen years in many ways. The planned route home has changed its plans. Steve's back requires the easiest, shortest way home, so he'll be flying for the first time in nearly a decade. The rest of the list of national parks is at least postponed.

I've seen relatives I didn't have before, been listened to by other people's kids who found I had information they were curious about, as well as by adults who also seemed to discover something in this 72-year-old brain. My granddaughter even told me I wasn't allowed to grow any older or do anything else which might remove me from her availability to have me listen to her and give advice. Wow - who knew that would ever happen? It was only my dearest hope during all those years I fought for visitation (with her mother, after granted by the courts), now handed to me by this wonderful new grownup raising her own family, making those years worth while.

My shooting expectations for this summer may have been seriously overreaching. I have gone practically  nowhere where a camera could go along to capture the pictures I imagined ready to shoot. Time's not up yet, but even as I think about scheduling, say, a day up at Crex Meadows, something inescapable gives me pause. I look out my window practically every day only to find that any shot I took other than close subjects would be marred by the quality of the sky.

Day after day after day, the sky is white. Not cloudy. Just white. Some humidity. Some smoke. Lots of excuses, leaving my mood more blue than the sky. I'd had hopes for  more chances at night photography. So far the most visible night view is of the tree frog(s) clinging on the outside of the living room window. I don't bother getting the camera, for besides difficulty of decent focus in that light, how could I possible out-do that years ago shot of one hanging out in the wren house up in the sugar maple, sitting in the opening looking out at the world? 

Stars occasionally point out which way is north, lest I lost all my marbles and didn't already know after 30 years in this house where that was. There are more stars than I see from Sun City, but light pollution has not crept but raced outward from the metro. The sun sets a deep orange for its last couple hours above the horizon, occasionally with bands of deeper color rather than any indication of clouds crossing its surface, the sun the only color left in the sky other than unrelenting white. Even where sun occasionally breaks through, it's still set in a white sky, not blue.

It's just... wrong. I've read so many sci-fi books about people living on other planets with other color skies, somewhat puzzled by their reactions to the different color. Sure, orange is weird, for one example,  but should it make somebody go nuts? Be a reason not to colonize an otherwise human-friendly planet? On days like this I begin to understand the author's  point of view. What is it about the blue -  aside from making the desired photograph? Have we evolved hard-wired to need it? Or to need the conditions which either produce it or result from it? 

Or am I just in a mood, tired from working a double shift outside this morning, wondering if there is ever any end? I did, after all, discover that some coneflowers have survived the chaos of these last years of neglect, along with a couple liatris - if I don't break them in clearing out the weed trees - along with Stella D'oros and another five colors of daylillies, balloon flowers thriving, Alaska daisies spreading into several locations. I still need to clear deeply enough to see if the painted daisies did also. Maybe that's what I need, to go out and give it another shot.

Let's see, bandana Check. Shoes? Check. Hand pruner? Check. Stump killer? Check. Out we g....

Wait! Is that thunder?