Clouds’ Illusions

I’d originally planned for today’s post to be about a trip to Chicago this past weekend. And, although I took a few photographs in the windy city, it was the clouds outside the airplane window coming and going that really drew me in.

As you’ll see, the classic Joni Mitchell song, Both Sides Now (listen below) describes the experience beautifully.

Clouds are endlessly fascinating and especially so from an airplane, where we see them from a different perspective. They’re constantly moving and changing, and so are we. New compositions appear every second.

Going to Chicago on Thursday morning, the view was one of blue skies above fluffy clouds that looked like cotton balls. It felt as if we were bouncing all the way to Chicago, in anticipation of a fun weekend ahead. I felt carefree and relaxed.
 

“Rows and flows of angel hair
And ice cream castles in the air
And feather canyons everywhere,
I’ve looked at clouds that way.”

Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

 
Coming home mid-afternoon on a snowy Sunday, the clouds looked very different, quite mysterious in fact. They were mostly blocking the sun and the blue sky, not fluffy like cotton balls, but more like a soft, snowy landscape.

Amazingly, the second stanza in Both Sides Now fit perfectly.
 

“But now they only block the sun,
They rain and snow on everyone
So many things I would have done,
But clouds got in my way.”

Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

 
As we began our descent, down through the clouds and back to reality, I felt as though the clouds were slowly enveloping me (and the airplane). It was time to get my head out of the clouds and start thinking about the practicalities of the week ahead.

Again, Joni speaks to me.
 

“I’ve looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
It’s cloud’s illusions I recall
I really don’t know clouds at all”

Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now

 
Joni Mitchell wrote this song as a young, twenty-something woman on the edge of stardom. In this interesting article by Brad Wheeler for the Globe and Mail, he quotes singer-songwriter Catherine MacLellan.

“Both Sides, Now is, at first, a meditation on clouds, the whimsical way a child sees them, as “ice-cream castles in the air,” but there are two sides to everything, and as we mature, we stop seeing clouds for their simple beauty, but as a sign of rain or bad weather. It is like that with all things that seem at first so simple and beautiful, such as love and life. We start out with such natural optimism as children, and then as adults we tend to learn a bitter pessimism or brutal honesty, seeing clouds/life/love for what they are.” – Catherine MacLellan, PEI singer-songwriter

It’s best to be able to see both sides. Listen below.
 

Related Reading

Cloud Symbolism

Alfred Stieglitz – Clouds as Equivalents

A Short Film Reflection on Clouds from The School of Life