One cloud connects to another

My sister and I like to include this sentence in our jargon. Every time that we realize that we really need to calm down and let go because otherwise everything will get stuck, we whisper to each other these magic words. “You’ll see.. one cloud will connect to another cloud which will connect to another cloud”.

In one moment on an unreasonably hot day in the green sculpture garden in the center of New Jersey I realized something important. It happened while I was waiting for my little ones to finish a train tour and I was incredibly jealous of my partner, who was chosen to go on the magical train journey, instead of getting stuck with a huge pram and a sleeping baby. Frustrated, I found myself lying on a bench with my shoes off, looking at the sky (that until that moment I hadn’t even notice was up there above me). The sky was a bright blue and full of beautiful white clouds.

I looked at the sky and asked it to give me an answer about this feeling of mine. The feeling of being stuck, that refuses to release me and go away. A troubled feeling of being blocked and unable to move. I asked the sky and it answered me in its splendid way. Suddenly I noticed how one faraway lone cloud moved towards a group of larger clouds and blended together with them. It turned into part of a whole large complex and after a few moments a different piece separated from the group and went off on its own in a different direction it chose and then a few minutes later it met up again with another cloud or group of clouds. A crazy dance of life where the cloud doesn’t notice the big picture happening around it. It simply makes its way in the direction it chose and on the way events unfurl that are sometimes expected and sometimes unexpected I suppose. And then I remembered something I know so well but had forgotten recently.

The sky put on a special performance for me (perhaps) which reminded me that at every stage of my life I can only see a small part of the sky – just a little piece of the big picture. And that my life like magic will sometimes get closer and sometimes get further away from the bigger picture laid out for me – a picture which I can’t see from where I am standing. And that everything will lead to one thing after another and turn into a life full of experiences. At that moment I smiled to myself and said a big thank you to the sky. I am at a particular place in my life where I can’t see the whole picture. Right now I’m in an insufferable place where it’s so difficult for me to give up on my independence, which isn’t easy for someone like me.

But definitely like life, this story will continue and whatever happens next is hiding around the corner. The trick is to pay attention to this moment right now and experience it fully without always asking to be either in the future or the past. They don’t exist for me. There’s only the here-and-now.

I continued to lie on the bench smiling as though I had understood the meaning of life for myself. I waited patiently to hear the voices of my sweet kids coming back from their train trip. This time I greeted them with kind caring words, genuinely missing them. We went together to the car to go home. Their father, who I had been so jealous of because he got to go with my kids on the train, had come back angry. Various things had annoyed him on the train ride… I thought to myself how funny life is. He was jealous of me because I stayed behind and I was jealous of him that he’d gone on the trip… luckily at least today I saw a bit beyond what I usually do.

So maybe just maybe and only if it feels right for you and natural you might choose to see that this momentary reality is just another cloud that is going to join another cloud which will blend into another cloud and bring you with amazing precision exactly to the place that you are supposed to be.