Empty Spaces

Ah, how lightened I felt after November's presidential election to be free of all that hype and campaigning.  But then, immediately post-election, I started hearing talk about the 2016 election.  We weren't allowed any empty space.  Just as, if one went out in the evening in early November, one already saw Christmas lights.  No waiting around, even, until after Thanksgiving.  We used to make it a practice to not play Christmas music--and that included such wonders as Bach's Christmas Oratorio--until after Thanksgiving dinner.  The whole Winter Wonderland complement had been piping through stores at that point for what seemed weeks, and we were of the opinion that less was more.   (Wish our election process felt the same way.)

Then, after reading about the upcoming new addition to the British royal family, I saw a piece, "What Will They Name the Baby?"  Why not, And Who Will the Baby Then Marry When He or She Grows Up?  And who will their heir then be?

There's the noise thing, as well, when something labeled "music" serves as a backdrop whether we're out by the gas pumps filling up or waiting in a doctor's office.  Let's leave some empty space there, too--called good old silence.

And now our skies are getting it.  When I was back in Santa Fe for a few weeks this winter, the formerly bright blue skies were being filled with pollutants on a regular basis.  Some excuse this by saying these are simply the normal exhaust trails from commercial jets called condensation trails.  But con trails are short-lived ice crystals that quickly evaporate.  These are more like an aerosol chemical soup.  It's apparently happening all over but easier to see in the West where the sky seems endless.  Not stuff I particularly want floating down on me ... or on the crops I eat.  I don't consider this blog to be the place for a discussion of the why's and wherefore's--if you're curious, look it up on line--but here are some photos I took.

Looking west one morning around 9 a.m.

Looking east from the same spot

What the sky then looked like a few hours later

Next morning, same place, same hour ... what the skies SHOULD look it!  (If those had been commercial flights, wouldn't they reappear each morning?)