In the Eyes of the Beholder

In the hallway four women breathed four sighs as they gazed through the glass doors of the elementary school. Prisoned inside three of them remarked on the lovely day, one rolled her eyes in disgust. A warmish day does not automatically translate into beauty.

Looking across the valley I could barely distinguish the Oquirrh Mountains, a few ridges peaked through the haze. Outside at recess my opinion refused to change. My definition of beautiful excludes dust particles, air pollutants, fumes and evaporated salt.

Outside on a beautiful day my eyes don’t itch, my skin isn’t clogged by air irritants and my snot isn’t black. On a beautiful day the warmth of the sun beats on me. Today the warmth of the thick air suffocated me. I felt like I’d wandered into a spider web and the poison from the spider’s bite would crush my lungs.

Those poor fools, I surmised, have never lived in open country. A twist in life once again makes me long for the comfort of home, Lamar. There on the open plains I grew up with clean air (if you don’t count the large percent of methane). The blue skies continued past the horizon, swallowing the sage brush.

Every day offered new shades of sky blue. The blue of winter days lured you unsuspectingly into the bitter cold. A cold that seemed to condense the color and deepen the color while stretching it far above you. The color so rich and a sky so thick you believed that bundled up you could wait outside for the sky to reach its saturation and fall on you.

The blue of spring released the frost bound color scattering it across the sky. Those days the blue looked faded, light, carefree. Or maybe it was waking after a slumber, not quite warm and slightly pale.

Summer heat brought dizzying shades starting with a light blue against a sunrise that burst into a shock of variations. Against a sharp roof you saw a deep penetrating blue that bleed into a lighter ring around the sun—I suppose I should mention I spent some time staring at the sun as a youth. That is why you are reading a blog that uses blue fifty times without a clear description of the hue—And when the storms brewed the sky swelled into royal blues and violets that gave way to a midnight blue contrasted with streaks of white burning light.

In autumn the cobalt blue skies dipped to greet you in the mornings, whisper to you at noon, hug you after school and kiss you good night at dusk.

The High Plains—blessed with four seasons producing 365 beautiful days.