Whether on car rides or watching the sunset or just looking outside the window at a random point in the day... I look to the clouds.

Each one tells a story, forming shapes known to me. Drifting across the sky, attaching themselves to larger pieces, and once they finish telling that story, they move on to create another. Pieces of white cotton floating during the day, and when the sun begins to set, they reflect those colors of rose pink, ocean blue, burnt orange, and sunflower yellow.

Clouds are my distraction from reality, determined to suck me into their improvisational theatre where I, as the audience, try to make sense of the story they're telling.

Taking what shapes they create and running with a wisp of an idea of how to continue the story. My imagination runs wild, and if I'm not careful, it could run for hours on end making up stories in the form of prose, poetry, songs, or journal entries. A cloud, that I wrote about in my notes of cloud sightings, was the inspiration for my poem "Loner Of The Ballad." The cloud, the muse, formed the shape of a skeleton with a dagger jutting out from its throat, the hilt in the back of his neck, and then the skeleton disintegrated.

Cloud watching doesn't only spur my mind, but many times it calms the madness of my mind.

I think when you are able to look outside yourself and towards nature, you can recognize how slow and still the natural world is. It doesn't feel the need to rush because there's nowhere it needs to be; all it has to do is exist and breathe. And when I recognize this, I become a part of it, content and at peace with existing and breathing.

It's a moment of rejuvenation. Free in spirit, no responsibilities to own, no relationships to nurture. As high as the clouds in the sky, far from Anything or Anyone's reach.