Vantage

An experience I found to be noteworthy for reflective purposes:

I recently attended my brother’s wedding in Portland, a city that is infamous for its much raining and cloudiness.  After only a few brief reprieves from the clouds all weekend, I was feeling pretty tired when the time came to go back home.  The day I was to catch my return flight was overcast from the time we got up in the morning to the time I boarded the plane.  As we ascended, I caught the occasional glimpse of the cityscape as it sunk further beneath, causing what once were individual buildings and landmarks to blend together into one neatly industrialized patch.  It is a much prettier city than I had previously given it credit for, both from ground-level and a bird’s-eye view.  But, despite the august scene unfolding below, I proceeded to sink back into my seat, still feeling mildly gloomy.  After a few more minutes, the earth had disappeared completely as we entered the cloudy blanket that hung over the city.  This seemed to me like as a good a time as any for a nap.  As I sat there, eyes closed and peaceful, I was suddenly surprised to find myself tightening my eyelids to keep out a burst of sunlight from without the window.  I came to and glanced about the cabin, which was now filled with sunshine.  To my curiosity, my tiredness seemed to vanish with the cloud cover; I was actually feeling a bit chipper now.  My gaze was drawn once again out the window and I beheld the clouds, this time from above.  The sunlight glistened off the flocculent surface below, accentuating its fluffy texture.  They stretched far off into the distance, finally converging with the azure sky in a makeshift horizon.  What once caused the day to seem so heavy and woebegone had transformed into something beautiful and majestic.  Or had they transformed?  After all, these were the same clouds that had been there all day...  The sun shone brighter than ever, causing me to forget that it had ever been absent in the first place.  Or was it ever absent?  On second thought, neither of these things had changed at all.  Really, the only thing that had changed was the way, or the perspective from which, I was looking at them.

I probably wasn’t very cryptic in my redaction of the event, so I’ll be brief.  Often times, life, or the situations in which we find ourselves, can get bleak.  But no life stays cloudy forever.  And even if it seems to stay that way for a long time, the mere presence of cloud cover doesn’t mean that the sun has extinguished or failed to give its light.  We simply must learn to see in a different light.  Doing so doesn’t put us out of touch with reality.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  I’d say it keeps us in touch with reality.   No matter what our surroundings may be, the sun never stops shining.  There's always hope and better days are ahead.  Sometimes we just have to change our vantage point to see it.  Considering and changing one’s vantage gives one the advantage.