What a gorgeous day! I retire with the dogs, a book, and a tall glass of iced tea to the deck, which is bathed in absolutely perfect weather, a touch of crispness in the air and humidity nowhere to be found. A few pages in, and I’m done with mental exercise, content to gaze at that seriously blue sky with clouds punctuating the view as if they were applied by some unseen hand to protect my eyes from such vivid color.

I set my mind free to absorb whatever it wishes in the moment, and apparently that’s a quantum flirt of some magnitude … in the form of a cloud.

Clouds have become my teachers, I think. On this particular day at this particular moment, what flirts with me is a small rogue cloud that’s inexorably separating itself from its much larger progenitor. I watch its journey, for it IS a journey:  Wispy at first and small in stature, with tendrils seeming to grasp back toward the parent cloud while others reach out from the parent toward it. I watch as that small cloud gathers substance. It’s almost as if it’s taking a deep breath before cutting itself free.

And then the tendrils part, some remaining behind and some following. The rogue is now independent, making its own way through the that blue true dream of sky.

I’m awestruck, because in that moment, with that quantum flirt, I know deep within me what parents sometimes have such a hard time understanding – young people grow up. And they’re supposed to do that. They’re supposed to break the tendrils that tether them to safe harbors – at least harbors we feel are best for them. In fact, it’s those tendrils, those tethers, that keep them from becoming who and what they’re meant to become. As adults, we have a role in this process, no less important – and it’s to open our hands and let go from our side, too.

The whole process is natural and organic – my cloud shows me that – and if we stop it, we do so at the peril of ever seeing our children – our clouds – rise up, grow, develop, and follow whatever path is laid before them.

It may well be that the process is hard for a complex human to grasp. I suspect, rather, that it’s not so much hard to grasp as it is hard to acknowledge the process and let go. But let go we must, or those beautifully blue skies risk becoming overcast and gray because parent clouds cannot bear to separate or smaller cloud just can’t gather the will to break free.

Oh, I don’t want to miss such glorious afternoon skies like the one I see before me, with all those clouds ambling across. I’m all about letting go and letting be, about watching and loving what becomes.

For all the rogue clouds out there who are beginning to make their own ways through the sky, this quantum flirt tells me it’s right and good to do so. So, be you a cloud or a human, take a deep breath, gather all your tendrils, and break free. Be just what you are meant to be.

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees 
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything 
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

e.e. cummings
1894-1962