Joni Mitchell sings “Rows and flows of angel hair and ice cream castles in the air, and feather canyons everywhere. I looked at clouds that way.” I am not a fan of Joni’s music, I will immediateIy change the channel for I am one that needs the right song for the moment I am in. The other day though, I saw the YouTube video of this song with Joni singing mind you at age 78 and having to relearn so much following a brain aneurism a few years back, “Both Sides Now” at a Rhode Island Folk fest just this year. It brought me straight to tears.
Who as a child did not lay on their backs in the cool grass on a warm summer day and look for characters in the clouds; might it be a dog, a person laughing. Dreams are spoken and wishes held tight while looking. Just as fast as the clouds can change the illusions in the sky they can become just plain ugly. They bring the rain, the snow and a darker day.
Two years ago today I was in the throes of grief through losing a father, grandfather, my husband’s brother and my husband’s sister’s significant other in a years time. The cloud cover was heavy like the weight of a large quilt. It was almost comforting to lay under that blanket and the darkness of the clouds. As each death descended upon us it was much more comforting to just lay there with no break in the clouds. Little did we know one of the hardest deaths was very near. With little time to truly grieve, our daughter’s husband peacefully passed away in his sleep. Overwhelming, incredibly sad, stunning, leave you breathless and extremely painful. You grieve for the son lost, your grandchild’s realization daddy is gone forever and he will never know him as we did. The most difficult though was watching my own child grieve, hurt, in despair and not being able to make any of it better. The quilt never felt as heavy as it did that night, the next week…for months and now nearly two years. My child was simply sad and there was absolutely nothing I could do to fix it. Grief hung on my shoulders like a shawl. I could only walk through her cues as she began to heal but we know that can be an indeterminate period of time but it seemed like the clouds simply were ever in the way.
The picture attached is one from a race night and while sitting at my son’s pit spot about a week after my son-in- law‘s death I found absolute beauty in the clouds. I saw love, peace and a feeling of “this will be better one day.” Having been consumed with all the sadness and grief I thought I could never pull out from under I found that time allows us to grow into the new normal and that there is love before death and loss but also the same after. Just like the clouds can be ever changing so is life. I still find there are days that I need to throw the quilt off and allow the clouds to break. As Joni sings, “I’ve looked at life from both sides now. From win and lose and still somehow it’s life’s illusions I recall. I really don’t know life. I really don’t know life at all.” Just that life is difficult, with loss but the sun will peek through the clouds when they are darkest. That’s what I know about life.
Feel free to embrace Joni Mitchell in her reprisal to singing and giving truly giving us a gift in her song, “Both asides Now.”
Life As I Live It 