Sketches from this summer fill a once blank book with tree branches, rock formations, and the unusual shapes of wilting leaves. The year before it was filled with drawings of power lines. I love to look up and am often transfixed by their grace, The beautiful light from the sunny sky that makes it possible to comfortably stand outdoors and see so clearly never crossed my mind. 

But then when autumn seemed to go on forever, like I wish every autumn would, it was impossible not to notice how overwhelmingly blue the sky appeared against orange autumn leaves, it was as if the leaves challenged the sky to a colour duel.

Now that winter is here, I am noticing for the first time, how the greyness of the sky seems to exist for the sole purpose of highlighting the architecture of bare branches, although choiceless, I'd rather believe that the branches are brave enough to remain after birds have flown away and all their leaves have fallen. The sky seems so flat in the winter when the sun isn't shining. But the flatness makes possible the illusion that snowflakes are magical beings that somehow only appear just inches above my nose. I want to stick out my tongue and as a flake touches down, imagine that I can actually taste the sky.

The changing sky I now understand is not just a backdrop to the buildings, trees, mountains and life that exists in the foreground, it is an entirely unique and beautiful story of it's own. It is love, connection and beauty. Leonardo Da Vinci famously said "Once you have tasted the taste of sky you will forever look up." I think I will.