Why date clouds? Why write about clouds? Why not! It's quite impossible for me to say that I'm re-reading Annie Dillard's For the Time Being as it is constantly being opened and read in brief pericopes as interest and insight open my mind. The book is 204 pages divided into seven chapters, each of which divided into 10 trains of thought:
Birth + Sand + China + Clouds + Numbers + Israel + Encounters + Thinker + Evil + Now
It is a treasure that asks hard and honest questions of God and faith and existence as it examines the vast universe and the singular life. Can one life matter? Annie Dillard writes, resoundingly, YES. Facing death as an inevitability (our human condition), does it render daily and fleeting things, such as clouds, as useless? No, their value and meaning are increased. She writes:
Digging through layers of books yields dated clouds and near clouds. Why seek dated clouds? Why save a letter, take a snapshot, write a memoir, carve a tombstone?
Annie Dillard, For the Time Being, p47