A good sky

Seems like I’m always chasing a good sky.

Something catches my eye or my heart so I try to capture it before the winds shift or the sun takes cover. Many times, I like what I saw better than what I catch.

I found a good sky on Sunday as I headed back across the state toward home. Quite a few stormy thoughts rattled my mind about an editorial project expanding out of control. On a tornado scale, it’s a F5 capable of lifting a town off its foundation and hurling missiles across several states. The research has left me ragged like a forgotten jacket stretched across a barbed wire fence.

So I took the long way home to see what else might stir up along the dirt roads.

The wind and the clouds lead me to the windmill museum at Shattuck where important symbols of Oklahoma history spin across every kind of sky imaginable. Engraved stones honor the men and women who drilled the dry soil to find water so people could survive here. It was Mother’s Day so I took a break and ate something called a chicken fritter sandwich purchased at a nearby truck stop. I watched the giant pinwheels waltz against the clouds until I remembered something I’d read back in 10th grade.

“Look, your worship,” said Sancho; “what we see there are not giants but windmills, and what seem to be their arms are the sails that turned by the wind make the millstone go.”

“It is easy to see,” replied Don Quixote, “that thou art not used to this business of adventures . ..”

It was a perfect sky for a windmill kind of day.