Yesterday I locked myself out. Thanks to a friendly neighbor I was able to call my brother, the possessor of a spare set of keys. Being the nice guy that he is, he agreed to drive over. It would be an hour and a half before he would arrive.

There was nothing for it but to sit on the bench by my front door and wait. No phone to fiddle with. No car keys for errands. No shoes to walk. There I sat, annoyed until I realized what a gift it was to sit still and watch the clouds shapeshifting above me.

They looked very similar to the photo above. Huge puffy cobblestones moving west to east at a fair clip. The altocumulus clouds (because that’s evidently what they were) were flanked by two passageways of clear blue. Converging airstreams dancing in the sky above me.

All that would’ve gone unnoticed were it not for a slight mishap. Not since a necessary surgery landed me in a San Antonio hospital bed during the pandemic had I spent more than an hour gazing at the sky in broad daylight. And before that, many moons more had passed.

But here, two days, a year and a half apart were suddenly linked by the same sky. The same happy heart. We live in a magic place filled with wonder and possibility. If only we would take the time to sit still.

FYI: Sky Dancer is a poetic term in the Tibetan culture that translates as the female embodiment of enlightened energy.