Yesterday we boarded a plane to New Orleans, where Number One Son Sam has a big and huge requirement before he graduates from Loyola in May.

The Senior Recital.

bah bah BAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!

*If you didn’t sing that in an ominous tone in your brain, you did it wrong. Please return to the line above and do it again.  Thank you.

So we got on a plane, me and JoHn.

I don’t know what Mac and Jack and Gabe are doing at home but based on the text we got last night….

Ya. It does not look good.

So I am doing what any parent on vacation does when they leave some kids at home.

Pretend they do not exist.

And New Orleans is such a cool city filled with cool stuff and I thought I would just be posting all sorts of cool “New Orleans people and stuff” photos and maybe reflecting on Sam almost being done with college but then guess what happened?

Clouds!

Okay, I am one of those people who never got adult-y enough to shift my desire from the window seat to the aisle seat for practical purposes (like not having to climb over people and potty access).

I want the window seat, I want it badly, and – yes – it was kind of a prerequisite (for, like, marriage) that JoHn would fork it over to me on every single trip we ever took together that required a plane.

And, yes, I still imagine puffy clouds are solid enough to bounce on.

But I also wonder how, when viewing the world from above, there are people who are so busy that they forget to stop and breathe in awe.

But I digress…

So I’m on the plane and reading a book and these dang clouds just showed up outside my window and they were just so insistent.

Rolling and posing this way and that… just begging to be photographed.  They just wouldn’t leave me alone.

So I leaned over and reached for my camera bag way under the seat, totally obeying the ‘DO NOT FOR YOUR SAFETY REMOVE YOUR SEATBELT” sign above my head (it didn’t say all that in words, but the illuminated icon, in ‘wicked dangerous red’ was enough to make it clear), and I pulled out my camera and took this one of the New Jersey Shore Clouds…

I know, right.

I think the New Jersey clouds are a bit misunderstood because I did not see any big hair or long, fake fingernails on even one of them.

I did think I heard Springsteen though.

Thunder Road… super soft.

And then I just sort of looked out periodically, as we passed over other states which I think included Georgia, and maybe Ohio, and Siberia… playing with my camera settings along the way and kind of loving the grainy, film-y, effect of one series of settings…

But then, all of a sudden, the plane engines quieted, and we were coming into New Orleans and there was the coolest light above the clouds that begged me to get back to color…

And just after I took it, I was about to put my camera away and happened to glance forward, toward the front of the plane and smiled.

Because I wasn’t alone.

Thanks Mister.

For reminding me that I will never be too old, or too adult-y, to find joy in the magic of the world from above.

Thanks for readin.

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