Special sky...

I woke up this morning with the whole of the rest of my life stretching out before me. So that was a relief, especially as there was such a special sky.

There is something about a particular kind of winter sky that makes me feel so content and happy. I do know why, but it’s hard to explain. I'll try though and I’ll start with the sky itself.

In some ways it’s a storm sky; pink tinged, orange blue, a strange light making everything seem just a little bit more real, more solid somehow. There’s the slight threat of snow, although it’s usually rain, and the air seems empty, far emptier than it should. Sound carries and, even when there is no wind, the wind whistles somewhere. It’s the type of sky that makes me feel alive and I find myself outside staring up at it, a huge grin on my face with the whole of the rest of my life stretching out before me.

As for the why, well, that sky makes me feel free; free and alive in a life where anything I want to be possible is possible. Free to do what I want any old time if you like; but only if I want to do and I like. I have choice; choice because I am at that stage in my life where I have nothing to prove, nobody to impress, nothing driving me towards whatever it was I was once driven by, time to be me, the opportunity to develop my character, a chance not to care, or to care, or to be indifferent, or different.

It’s a sky full of not giving a hoot and caring about the things that are worth caring about.

It’s almost like being a child again; a naughty boy pretending to be ill so that I could stay off school at my Gran’s house, watching that same sky scud through the kitchen window and dreaming of skating on wooden skates along a canal in a long-ago Holland.

As free as the inland gull that drifted on the wind above my head this morning, bathed in the pink light of that special sky, above the chimney pots, far from the sea and caught up in the wind which wasn’t whistling even though it was.

See, I told you that it was hard to explain.