Sky Dreaming

Sitrep: Gym tonight.

I dreamt I was in Spain last night. Only it was my parents house here in the States. But I know itwas Spain because of the sky. The brightness of the sun, the intensity of the heat. It's how I remember the Spain of my youth, those visits to Abuela & Abuelo, and sundry aunts, uncles, cousins. In my dream it was that sky, that light, that heat that made my brain say "Spain" and not "Florida". As usual, it was a weird dream. Upon arrival, I got to my parents and after greeting my brother and his family, jumped straight into the pool. To the delight of my youngest niece who was in the pool with her mother, my sister. I can still feel how sweet that water was, how refreshing. Then it was time to leave for home. Sigh. And then the sky coming in to work this morning was wonderfully quirky. A weather front dropped around 4-6 inches of heavy wet snow yesterday, along with dropping the temps. I'm out in the east valley area, so it's pretty open between home and work. Driving west, there seemed to be a white wall swallowing the town, topped by a few clouds tinged with the colors of the sunrise. It was like those pictures I've seen of giant dust storms in Australia. Only this was white, tinged gray. Once I turned north, it changed. To the east of me, the sunrise was beautiful. The sun had cleared the snow-covered mountains, highlighting the new dusting of snow on the yellow-brown foothills, with deep green pines poking up all over the place. Little tendrils of fog curled between some of the foothills. But the road I was on seemed to be some kind of arbitrary line that white wall struggled to seep past. As if the very earth on the other side of the pavement was fighting back. I could still see the sunrise to the east, as clear and bright as it should be. As the road curved more to the northwest, the whiteness made headway. Visibility dropped to 1/10th of a mile (for me, anyway) and the sun to the east was a fading memory. Once I made that final turn west, it was all over. I was swallowed whole.