Dragon Ribs in a Winter Sky
finding day to day magic
Before the sun set tonight a dragon drifted over my house. It covered the entire sky, its rib cage dipping below the clouds, nearly brushing the rooftops. I wondered where it would land, on what mountain top, in what country. I wanted to fly with it, but couldn’t lift off the ground. I had learned to speak the language of dragons from my parents, and asked the dragon if I would see him again. He turned his gigantic, majestic head in the direction of the wind and looking down at me promised, if I continued to search the skies, he would be there.
Each day brings new challenges at work, at home, and within myself. When I’m overwhelmed with worry about my family or the emails piling up in my office inbox, finding wonder in the natural world evaporates. But in winter magic sparks in me without conscious effort: I’m a February baby, partial to moody, winter skies. And even though summer sunsets offer brilliant, picture-worthy displays, it’s during the darker months you’ll catch me slightly off-kilter, daydreaming.
Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I ran outside, fumbling with my phone to capture the image that opens this post. I’d never seen anything like these clouds! The formations are called radiatus, broad parallel bands of clouds appearing to converge on a point on the horizon due to the effect of perspective. They are a type of cirrus cloud, and I think I identified them correctly. At first I thought they might be vertebratus, but those cirrus clouds are thinner, wispier, and more like the skeleton of a fish.
As a teenager I was extremely curious, but I had a particular interest in how my mother taught me things when I was a baby. One story she told me stuck in my memory. She said she wheeled my stroller up and down the block, stopping along the way to name things. “This is a tulip. Hear that? It’s a robin. This is a mushroom, but don’t eat it.” She said I often cupped my ear when I heard a new sound, and then she’d name it for me. “That was Booboo, our neighbor’s dog.”
Winter didn’t stop my mother from leading me through those wondrous days: “Aren’t they beautiful? Snowflakes. You can say it—snowflakes.”
And there were always shapes in the sky. “Look up! Do you see them? There’s a chick, a bunny, a dragon!”
My father was a weather man in the navy, his gaze most often trained skyward. He was born in December and died when I was young, when I was beginning to enjoy huddling next to him, peering through his telescope at the stars on a crystalline night. His dragons were much farther away than my mother’s, their names more complicated, but I learned to speak their language, too.
Maybe it’s the melancholy of winter that ignites the magic. When the day is full of errands and irritations, I search the skies and somehow feel better. Clouds are constantly changing. Chicks become bunnies, become dragons, in a heartbeat, reminding me how quickly the day, the month, the year will sweep past me.
I speak the language of dragons. They know me and visit me often. They will visit you, too, if you look for them.
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Until next time,
Jan
*Photo by Jan M. Alexander. © 2024. All rights reserved.
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