What Is A Cloud?
Cloud’s have always sparked my interest. The way they are created. The different types of clouds. The different objects I see inside clouds. I would spend hours looking at the clouds pointing out the dogs, cakes, shoes and flowers I saw. Clouds create stories in the sky. Clouds ARE stories in the sky. Clouds make me feel found even if I am lost.
I captured this picture right before the sun began to set. I felt like the clouds looked fake. If there weren’t any trees in the photo, I feel as though the clouds would look like a drawing or painting.
People are very much aware of my cloud obsession. My roommates rush into my room to tell me to look outside whenever the clouds decide to paint pictures across the sky. My boyfriend literally plans dates for us so I can cloud watch. I think they are magical.
I’ll never forget about a cloud in the sky in May of 2020, during all the craziness of COVID. I stared at it for what felt like forever while the sun set in the distance. To me, I instantly saw an angel. It actually looked like one of those ceramic angel figurines that my mom kept locked up in our dining room with the other fine china and expensive items. It felt like a sign that everything was going to be okay. That everything was going to work out.
I remember feeling so lost during this time if life — as I am sure most of us did. So seeing this figure in the sky gave me hope. However, I am not sure how true the sign was considering here we are two years later and COVID is still very prevalent. But nonetheless, at the this time in life, it felt like a hopeful sign.
Obviously, I am big on metaphors and symbolism. So I started researching other metaphors about clouds.
To my surprise, there are actually a wide range of metaphors about clouds. I assumed most, if not all, would be positive, uplifting and hopeful metaphors. But actually there were a lot with feelings of fear, fogginess and death.
This made me want to look more into the not-so-positive side of clouds, which is totally unlike me because I am a very positive person.
I found this super quick and interesting YouTube video about how clouds are a metaphor for life and death. What are your thoughts on this metaphor? I can totally wrap my head around this thought process and actually really enjoyed thinking about it.
This video briefly talks about the process of how clouds are formed, but I wanted to take it back to basic primary/elementary school science books. How are clouds formed?
The process seems so simple, right? But really, so much goes into the process as a whole. What is even crazier to me is that we can see the process happen with the human eye. It is honestly mind boggling.
Do you know what is even more mind boggling than clouds? ARIZONA CLOUDS.
Growing up in the midwest, I was accustomed to the rain, snow and cloudy days. I never really thought too deeply about the clouds or rain, because they were so normal.
But when I moved to Arizona, things changed. The clouds weren’t the same. The sun was almost always out. It rarely rained. Sometimes there were even multiple days in a row where I wouldn’t see a cloud in the sky. As I type this right now, there are hardly any clouds outside my window to be very honest.
I started thinking about why this is. Why does Arizona not get that many clouds? Why does it rain less in Arizona? Why does Arizona have more sunny days than any other state in the United States?
I found this super insightful webpage if you are curious about Arizona weather patterns like I am.
As it turns out, I am not the only one who is curious or observant of the clouds in Arizona. All over multiple social media accounts and platforms, there are thousands of photos and questions being asked about the Arizona sky.
Here are a few of my favorite that I found while searching Twitter.
The fact that the clouds in the sky across Arizona truly make people so curious is honestly very entertaining to me. It makes me wonder what happens when Arizonans go visit the midwest, east coast, or up northwest in Washington or Oregon.
I could go on and on about clouds and how peculiar I find them. Maybe one day I’ll become such a cloud enthusiast that I start my own social media account where I post pictures of the clouds across all the states/countries/continents. Seems like a fun hobby, right?
Hopefully this sparked your interest to start paying more attention to the clouds around you. You never know what hidden messages are written in the clouds — literally.