Clouds

This is a piece of writing that I did after starting to write about the clouds in the sky, and then finding a way to make it about me. This is me reining it back in and forcing myself to write about something other than myself.

The clouds in north east Los Angeles on April 5, 2024 are actually much more present than previously reported. As I sat on the ground writing about myself, I would look straight up and see blue sky. But now, in my office chair, looking to the north i see the clouds more fully.

They are a mass, they extend past the Angeles National Forest’s peaks, they kiss the tops of the mountains and their color is a deep grey.It is probably quite dark where the clouds and the mountains meet, and there is probably someone who is vert familiar with how this looks. This person probably knows each peak that I can see by name, and has spent years hiking and walking through the area.

I wonder what the effect of the clouds touching the mountain tops is. I wonder what the vegetation looks like up there. the plants there probably get a drastically different mount of sunlight than vegetation even a little bit lower. Somehow it seems like only the vert top of the mountain ever gets kissed by the clouds but maybe that’s not true. Really the best way to find out would be to take pictures of the mountain tops every day until their shape is burned into my brain.

Then, when the rare cloud covers it, i would gain greater constitution of the cloud. Elizabeth asked me about the clouds when I told her that it was cloudy in LA and I said “I dunno” and showed her what the clouds looked like instead. Even now I shy away from describing what he clouds look like. I don’t have the vocabulary. But vocabulary is developed.

The clouds closer to me are lighter, whispier, as they make room for the big blue sky. As the mass moves north, the clouds seem to get lower , more layered, until the heavy grey clouds meet the peaks of the mountains in the Angeles National Forest. However to the northeast there are pockets where the sun is able to shine through to reach through and deliver its warm light. Radiant, yellowed cotton clouds, floating, unmoving above a valley amongst peaks in the range of mountains.