Pittsburgh Skies
by Dory Adams
White skies press down on me. Hang too low, too close to the hills and rivers. Too close for me to get a deep breath. Hazy and humid. Still. One immense cloud descending. Landing. Suffocating.
They say it’s the topography -- hills and rivers converging. The confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela at the Ohio forms a vortex that sucks the blue out of the sky, leaving only a canopy of white.
Overcast. That’s how they say it, with full acceptance, unafflicted.
Driving home at dawn from a night’s work, I’m lost in a whiteout of fog. I’m glad I’ll miss this day. Glad I’ll sleep through it. I know when the fog burns off these skies won’t turn blue.
North on I-79, toward sweet shelter. Home. My husband still sleeping, patiently dreaming. Through my garden window, I will watch the fog lift from the hemlocks on the steep slope, where the land plunges out of sight. Slowly the distant hillside will reappear. Daylilies will trumpet yellows and oranges, mock the sun, lack its lithium. And I will go upstairs to my bed, lie down close to my husband, and know that the sky will not turn blue.
I could have continued to drive north, turned west onto I-80. Driven right out from under this Pittsburgh haze. Instead I wait here, for the occasional blue sky day when crisp clear light falls on everything, making it shimmer.