There’s something about a prairie sky that’s impossible to capture fully—though that doesn’t stop me from trying. This summer, we made the familiar drive to Edmonton to visit family. On the way back, I ended up behind the wheel for most of the trip, but it didn’t stop me from pestering my husband every few minutes: “Grab my phone! Quick, take a picture out that window!” and then, inevitably, “Okay, now the other window!”
The sky was on her usual summer display: endless, shifting, always just out of reach. Sometimes it was all blue and wide open, sometimes split with dramatic streaks of clouds. But it was around Tuffnell that things got really interesting. Ahead of us, a storm was rolling in—a layered wall of dark and light, one of those moments where you can actually see the rain falling in the distance. I could try to describe it, but nothing I come up with feels right.
It’s funny: in an age where we document everything, there are still things a phone camera can’t quite catch. The sweep of the land, the way the light changes minute by minute, the weird peace that comes with watching weather move across the open fields. We kept driving, snapping photos along the way, but I knew even then that the best parts would be the ones I couldn’t save. Sometimes the memory of the sky—framed by windshield and window, shared with the ones you love—is enough. And sometimes, it’s better that way.
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