I stare at the clouds. The year is fast escaping me, and I want to know what the clouds think about its passing. The clouds move too slowly for me. I will them to move faster. I remember lying on the grass like this many years ago, when I didn’t worry about what the clouds thought of my year. I used to will the clouds to reshape to my whims. I cut off edges like pulled cotton candy and reshaped middles and smashed faster moving clouds against giants. Watery circles and worms danced on top of the lenses of my sight as I conducted grand symphonies across the cerulean-blue sky.

In my mind’s eye the clouds already moved across the sky. They stood at attention along the edges of the earth waiting to provide their year’s accounting. My fingers tingle against the cold grass as I recall the power I had those many years ago. But today is not a good day to force my will on the clouds, no matter what images play across my mind. The clouds continue their stately march across the sky unaffected by my musings.

The clouds are not interested in me this year. Anger tickles my toes and I pull my feet away. I might as well be angry at the tide for all the good my rage against the clouds will do. Nobody remains angry at clouds for long. It’s easy to maintain resentment against sleet or rain or snow or blustering winds. But to be angry at clouds I might as well be angry at god, and we all know what good that does me.

I put my head back on the grass and watch the corners of the clouds for movement. Something tugs at the folds in my head: Patience, the clouds teach patience. I chew on a blade of lemongrass and think on patience. Patience is a type of control where you stop trying to make something happen and instead wait for that something to happen. The clouds will dance as they will dance. I don’t need to lead. I need only see where they bring me.

I spent the day playing with computers at home. It is different manipulating computers. Unlike for clouds there is always a correct answer to a computer’s puzzle. I don’t always like the answer but it is there and once I fall across it I know it for a certainty, as I know the feeling of a good-fitting shoe, or the sound my heart makes when called upon to once again realize that I’m not alone in this world. The clouds don’t care about how I spend my day. They don’t want to hear whether I solve today’s puzzle or whether I whittle down the great mound of challenges until a pile of wood shavings surrounds me on all sides, and for all the shavings the great mound seems only bigger. Clouds aren’t interested in people’s concerns. They’re so far away and see such a swath beneath them that one person’s problems, no matter how large or insurmountable they may appear from the ground, must seem so small and insignificant to the cloud.

And still I need my answers. I catch a whiff of spring in the cold air. I cough quietly to cover up my smile. The shortest day already passed and we move forward again, always forward to better times. Today is always better, which makes tomorrow today. I can see the clouds nodding their cottony approval. I breathe little clouds from my mouth and watch them vanish. I wonder if some of my water vapor will make it high enough to join with the real clouds. I wish the vapor well.

A large cloud covers the sun overhead. Its charcoal underbelly is dark but not menacing. On a day where the clouds’ shadows can be seen littered across the valley, there will be no precipitation. The light grows dim as I pass its underbelly. I imagine that a hole forms through its middle where a single sunlight beam focuses through the hole and onto my chest. Is that your answer, I wonder. But the cloud remains dark and silent, and I wait for it to pass. It grows cold on the grass as the cloud blows slowly past. The chill from the ground seeps up through my coat and shirt and into my chest. I feel my blood cool and a slight shiver leaves me.

Clouds like oceans don’t watch our years. They don’t understand what we did or how we did or why it was done. People were not given dominion over clouds. The clouds’ existence is lesson enough for us. I close my eyes and put the clouds out of my thoughts. They will not pass judgment over me this week. There might have been a time when clouds did judge me, but that time is long gone. It went away when I lost my control over the clouds, when the clouds no longer seemed interested in reshaping according to my whims.