My head’s in the clouds

I’ve never lived in a building that soared above the treetops.

Now I do. And the view is remarkably different.

Instead of being oriented to street level, I’m sky-centered now.

I traded the sights and sounds of the ground for a constant reminder of how much -- and how fast -- the heavens change.

When I sit in my 9th-floor living room with a good book, the skyscape competes for my attention. From my favorite chair, an enormous window to my right looks out on spectacular shapes that seem to morph from white, cottony bunnies to fierce forces of nature, sometimes with shocking speed.

Does that one look like a profile of Abe Lincoln? The one over there looks like a map of Europe with Italy’s boot kicking at the treetops. Still another looks like a chess piece -- is it a pawn, or maybe a bishop?

Sometimes I can get lost in the clouds, pointlessly trying to figure out what animal this one brings to mind or what fantasy another evokes.

It’s a mind game that was familiar to Shakespeare, so much so that he wrote about it in Antony and Cleopatra 500 years ago.

Sometime we see a cloud that’s dragonish;
A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,
A tower’d citadel, a pendent rock,
A forked mountain, or blue promontory
With trees upon’t.

I’m enjoying the ever-changing, crystalline view outside my windows. It’s better than ultra-high-definition, wide screen TV.

Except, of course, when Downton Abbey is on. And that’s usually after dark, anyway.