Head in the Clouds

Isn't the Oklahoma sky gorgeous?  I can never get enough of it.  It has been nice living out here with my mom and dad.  The sky is huge out here.  We have about 2 weeks left on the renovation and then we move back into the city.  I am very much looking forward to being in my own place with space for all my papers and books, but there are things that I will miss.  I will miss seeing my mom in her blue bathrobe under her "electric hug" (electric blanket).  I'll miss the noise of  my dad's coffee pot in the morning.  I'll miss the big back yard with the fort and the giant sky.  In the city the land rolls, it is not super flat.  There are trees too and so the skyline is obscured.  I like the feeling of openness that reaches all around me and above me.  I get claustrophic in cities.  It is funny, I once worked with a woman from South Korea.  She disliked Oklahoma for the same reason I love it-- the openness.  She was accustomed to crowded city streets with people, noise and buildings.  She said that open fields made her feel lonely.  I was really surprised by her reaction to all the space here.  Open fields and sky make me feel ALIVE.  I can breathe and think, I feel free.  I feel the same way when I am at the beach.  It makes me want to run and dance and dive in.  Don't get me wrong.  I love cities too-- the food, art, shopping and education available in cities are hard to beat.  But there is something inside of me that longs for open space.  I was watching a documentary on National Parks with my parents.  The commentator described the wilderness in National parks as Eden, land that has been untouched since creation.  He said that when a person enters into a wilderness he sheds all the power a human holds over nature.  In cities nature has been tamed by man, we control it, we own it.  In the wilderness the playing field is equalized and instead of controlling nature, we are a part of it.  Being part of nature stirs us from deep within, like a beautiful memory of a past forgotton.  It quenches that longing to be part of something greater than ourselves.  I thought this was an eloquent description of the emotions I also encounter when I walk amongst the clouds in the fields.  I feel like I am part of something greater there.  That is often where I sense the grandness of the Creator himself.