My dad and I were behind the barn and paused our work. There wasn’t a cloud to be found. Azure sky as far as our eyes could see.
I’ve never seen this in my whole life, I said. It’s so clear, so blue.
Yeah, me neither, my dad said with the sun at his neck. No airplanes, no contrails criss-crossing, no haze—nothing.
And to think, I said, this is what it’s supposed to look like.
My father is 75 years old. He’s farmed his entire life, full-time gig, outside, toiling in soil beneath the sun in frigid cold and sweltering heat. He worked the ground, planting seeds, spraying weeds, cultivating, tilling. Five decades plus. He’s seen a lot of these skies.
On a typical day, you could count a Southwest jet appearing in the distance every few minutes, high above the checkerboard of farm fields. Now, airplanes of any sort are rare. The limited air traffic and light automobile traffic—two of the largest contributors to air pollution—have delivered a rare visage: a splendid sky, right above you, free of charge, every day. It is the sky Native Americans, explorers, early settlers, and pre-industrial men and women enjoyed every day.
Right now, many people focus on all the things they yearn to go back to doing when the restrictions from the current pandemic lift. They can’t wait to return to normal, which just means the way things were before. The old status quo. Jump on planes, hop aboard sport utility vehicles, sit in traffic listening to podcasts and streaming tinny songs from your favorite band on the car radio, fly to Idaho to improve a factory’s efficiency rate another hundredth of a percent, satisfy that client, seal that mortgage, close that deal, sign up another ad buy.
But I’m consumed by this thing that I’ll miss. This is a rare time and in rare times come rare opportunities. Seize this opportunity. Go outside, look up. Watch a sunset, catch a sunrise, gaze at the stars. Take it in—every day, every night. Seventy-five years my dad has walked this earth, he’s never seen anything like this. You will want to remember this. Because once the status quo returns, it’s difficult to turn back.
