Drove last night through a cloud come to earth. Weather.

It rained for many miles. All grey, the edges of things blurred. Everything looked the same. Up and over the pass it rained but it was as if the higher I drove, the closer I got to the cloud’s natural home, the less giving the grey masses felt.

Past Snoqualmie, the rest stop at Indian John, all wet and standing water. But then the road down onto the high plateau and the weather tired. The rain sputtered out close to Ellensberg and the world took on contours and colour again.

By the time I crossed the Columbia, the roads were still damp, and the earth smelt life a giant white mushroom but the clouds had retreated back to the sky.

Still, they were there. The moon rose unnoticed, even its light was indistinguishable from the general haze of neon celestial reflection.

I slept at a rest stop, under a sleeping bag in the back of my car and woke just before the sun crested the horizon. Ripped open, the clouds were, where the waning moon pushed through high in the southern sky. I awoke on a long slow breath.

Today is the psychiatric assessment, and a (probably not very pleasant) road sign for my 13 year old niece and yet I was more relaxed than I have been in months. The source of the gift of a contented sigh? A gift of cloud, rain, light and silence probably.

When I unfurled and left the car to go get hot water, I found a folded $100 bill clipped under my windshield wiper. Odd the world.