perspective

The clouds were amazing. I don't know what compelled me to look out the window. Maybe the lack of reading material. Maybe the chatty tween the row in front of me who kept me from napping. Maybe the warning that it was about to get bumpy. Whatever it was, I'm glad I did. Interspersed amongst the inviting fluffy white clouds that could have been taken right out of a 5-year-old's drawing were flat, wispy cirrus clouds. Their horizontal lines dissected the giant puffs in such a way that you could easily imagine them being the surface of a vast ocean where you could simultaneously see the tops and bottoms of icebergs.

I didn't have my camera.

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When the clouds thinned, the boy behind me asked his mother if that was the Mississippi. The river is always huge, impressive. Because of the relentless rain, it had jumped its banks. The land isn't heavily populated but there are a few homes that still have water knocking on their doors. Others are islands, driveways leading to disappearing roadways. Large fields of crops are submerged. What was once a patchwork of greens has become a geometric pattern of glassy mirrors. When we finally get over dry land, you can see how the water ripped the crops from the ground. Muddy, brown fields irregularly edged in yellow and then green along the side furthest from the river. I am struck by the devastation. By what this means to the people in those flood-ravaged homes. What it means to the farmers. For the consumers. And how plane-fuls of passengers are touring this disaster area the same way government leaders do. Amazing and unbelievable and humbling and sobering.

And I didn't have my camera.