The shit you think about when your head hurts

I remember when I was little, like 5 or 6, watching the late August thunder heads roll along the Sprague River valley and think they must be a wonderful way to travel. They were so tall and white with thin white bases and up above everything. In my little brain I thought about jumping off the top of one and landing in the white froth. Of course there was danger of falling off the damn thing, but I was sure I wouldn't get too close to the edge. I'd be okay. Eventually the wind would pick up and my mom would call us inside and the late summer sun would turn the white puff into gold. And though it still looked colder than hell on top of the clouds, I still wanted to run and jump on them.

Today feels like one of those days. The early summer sunset with the breeze feels like those golden afternoons before I learned about science or let my imagination get caught up in the logic of how everything works and all the magical stuff doesn't. The clouds tonight are little gray skiffs, still wanting me to hop on them and go for an adventure. The breeze is waving me out to join them on their trip around the world. I know the nights would be cold, but I have a hooded sweatshirt.

Sometime I miss those days. They seemed so new and so wide open to opportunity- opportunities I didn't even know existed. I can still feel the coldness blowing my brother and my legs as we scan the sagebrush horizon for birds or whatever it was stirring up dirt on the gravel road. I can still see the way the sun turned the basalt plateau of Table Land rust red or the way the wind turned the wild rye into a flaxen sea. My heart still stirs a little when I think of the clouds and where we'd go.

Afternoons like these make me miss them all the more.