The Hidden Mountain Landscape of a Cloudy Day

 "Looks like we might get rain," said Jessica, looking out the kitchen window to the west. There  one can see all the way to the mountains on the west side of the valley. I took a glance out of the double window where the kitchen table sits. I could see the dark grey bulbous forms in the distance. "Awesome," I said. We hadn't gotten any rain all winter,.

As I've mentioned here many times, there are few things I relish here more than a rainy day---not just. passing storm but a day of soaking rain .

At mid day I went for my walk. Outside the front door I felt the kiss of cool air. My nostrils caught the faint hint of possible rain approaching. It was barely noticeable, but it was detectable. Trying to gather as much of the sweet delicious, I took a series of long deep breathes in my nostrils as I descended the outdoor stairs. Breathing it, and smelling it even slightly, my mind pivoted through a series of scent memories in my library of recollections. 

Once I was out in the park, one could see the sky above was filled the dark grey bulbous clouds that had been off to the west earlier in the day. I loved how they dark. The sun was completely blocked, although the clouds were not continuous, but isolated grey loaves above me.

A lifetime of watching clouds and weather from when I was a boy told me that my hopes of a true soaking rain would not come to pass today. The clouds above me were the thickest and darkest, yet they were not producing any rain above me. The clouds above would pass without a downpour. Already the ones off to the west were less dark and less robust in form. The aroma I had taken in on the stairs would apparently be the reward of the day. It was grateful for what I had gotten.

Then I walked past the pond heading south I looked off to the east to the nearby McDowell Mountains. The dark clouds going west to east had almost reached the McDowells. Delightfully this resulted in a a visual effect which one sees from time to time here and elsewhere, which is that the thick clouds, nevertheless with gaps, mean that the sun came through and illuminated the mountains only in sporadic patches. 

As a result, the crest of the dusty brown ridge, which would otherwise be the most prominent feature, was darkened and suppressed to the eyes. 

instead my eyes  were drawn downward toward the flank of the ridge, where the sun hit the mountain like a spotlight, illuminating the sub-ridges and valleys of the mountain, drawing out its three-dimensionality in a way that would never occur to the eye on a brilliant sunlit day. My mind projected the trails I knew that were up in these valleys, from my maps and also my own hiking. It was like a magic door had opened in my mind, revealing a little secret world that had been before my eyes but which I had forgot about through neglect.

I savored this particular view. By the time I came back on the path, even if the dark clouds were still present, they would have shifted, casting the spotlight elsewhere. The view I was seeing of the mountain was as fleeting as the clouds themselves.