Thursday, October 28, 2010

JEFF TURNER: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE SKY

MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
This is another exerpt from Jeff Turners book Notes To Stephanie: Middle Aged Love Letters And Life Stories.

father and daughter. http:// freephotos.com

The Other Side Of the Sky       

Well, seeing Jane so sad when we left Galveston made me also sad. As I said, when we were driving back, it had been a long time since I’d seen that look on her face. She is usually a pretty happy young lady and full of life. But at her dorm she certainly looked like life had been sucked out of her. We glanced at her Sad-Sack eyes, hugged her goodbye, climbed into the truck and turned for home.


Once we left Galveston, did you notice that there was a shield of cirrus clouds stretching from the southwest to the northeast? It originated somewhere southwest of Houston and flowed northeast with the jet stream. On the top of the causeway with the clear sky, the filaments of these ice clouds arched over the Earth stretching back to the western horizon and beyond. The clarity of the air made the clouds stand out sharply over the land of the coastal plain, its own features visible in such crisp relief that one could see in the far distance the surface slope up to the rolling terrain. And as time and miles unfolded, we were underneath it for a while. Then once we were nearly to Waco, we were on the other side of it. As we drove further north away from Jane and closer to home, I kept looking in the rear view mirror at those clouds, still arching over one far horizon to another.


Perhaps you thought I was just checking the traffic, but my gaze was looking far beyond what was just behind us. And while this visage was, of course, very beautiful, I still kept thinking of Jane, sitting alone in her dorm room on the other side of that sky. The clouds represented crossing a Rubicon: a divide in time and one’s life. We had crossed it, so had Jane, and the past was gone forever as she took one more step into her adult life. She would be at college far from home, pursuing her own dreams and not that smiling little girl standing in a field in the picture on my desk.


Many times, I guess our lives are like this. The past is always on the other side of life’s sky, not ever to be the same again. Just as clouds flow overhead never looking the same, and vanish in the distance, our memory of past events fade over time as they recede ever further from the present.


http://freephotos.com/
So, when you gaze outside on a day like yesterday, and a web of cirrus clouds spread across the sky, you should remember that there are some people who are dear to our hearts far away on the other side of those airy wisps, perhaps, also looking up at those same clouds towards us and thinking of home, family, and being loved.

Jeff Turner

Jeff's books are available at amazon.com

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