A place under the sun

A place under the sun

The sky above Rhode Island is like no other sky. We learn this when we leave our hometowns and travel, that the sky itself and the light it sheds, which we thought constant and universal, are different from place to place -- the sharp-edged light of tropical islands that glares off sand and sea; the diffuse pale light of an Irish afternoon, that soaks into the green shadowless world; the infinite dome that meets the flat horizon in all directions on the open ocean; the broken patch of blue squeezed between skyscrapers in New York. Each sky that we visit expands our concept of its possibilities.

In Rhode Island, our view of the sky is often intercepted. Buildings and trees clutter the flat landscape, hilltops and vistas are rare. So Rhode Islanders flock to their beaches, even in winter, fall and spring. Not to swim or surf, but simply to gaze. To get all that muddle out of the way and see only space.

Celestial synergy

But though the everyday sky here sometimes seems insignificant and small, it still fascinates with its variability. Providence is almost halfway up the curve of the Northern Hemisphere, halfway between the Equator -- where days are always 12 hours long, and at day's end the sun drops straight below the horizon, night on its heels -- and the North Pole, where a day lingers for six months, and the sun circles lazily low in the sky, gleaming weakly, but never sinking from sight.

Here, midway between those extremes, Rhode Islanders get the full magnitude of seasonal change. We enjoy long, leisurely days in summer, when the sun lingers high in the sky, and at sunset barely slips below the horizon, and slides slowly away to the west. We tolerate short murky days in winter, when the sun is far beyond the Equator's bulge, shining hot above the mountains of Argentina. In Rhode Island's winter sky, the sun never climbs far toward the zenith, but sends out tender oblique rays that touch our cheeks with light and leave them chilled.

The sky changes in these certain and predictable ways every year: the earth spins, and zooms along its elliptical track around the burning sun; the sky hangs on with centripetal force and gravity; the poles take their turns pointing toward and away from the abyss. And here on the eastern edge of a large land mass, halfway up the Northern Hemisphere, we pack and unpack our down parkas and flannel sheets and open and close the windows.

Where jet streams collide

But every day, the sky changes in ways that cannot be predicted. Today I woke and the sky was clear blue with thin scattered clouds above, thicker and whiter along the horizon. But late last night, forecasters said this would be the 12th cloudy, drizzly day in a row, not clearing till late in the afternoon. Weather defies prediction, by its complex and chaotic nature.

Rhode Island's climate is famously unpredictable. Unlike some regions that are ruled by one or two more-or-less stable systems, where wet and dry, cold and hot, follow fairly regular patterns, Rhode Island is at the intersection of jet streams and storm tracks. It's perched between a huge deep ocean to the south and east, and a wide varied continent to the north and west. Tropical and polar air masses clash; weather arrives with the prevailing winds from the west or steers up the Gulf Stream from the south.

There is no dry season, on average one day out of three has snow, sleet, hail, rain, drizzle, or mist. And even within the state's tiny perimeter, there is variability: the coastal plains, stroked by the sea breeze, are likely to be snowless and foggy on the same day that folks in higher elevations inland are shoveling and sledding.

To most of us, the weather doesn't matter that much. It's a topic of conversation in elevators and cubicles; it determines if we need to carry an umbrella or overcoat; go for a run or go to the gym, or allow extra time to commute. But to a few, those who live and work outdoors, it matters every day.

But while sailors and fishermen, farmers and planters may live in the weather and study its moods, nobody knows the sky in the way that pilots do. For those who fly, the sky is transformed from a distant vista to a real place; its reality is thick and solid, it supports their wings. And it is always a dangerous place. Its colors and clouds and moods are matters of deep concern. Lindbergh said, "You never see the sky until you've looked upward to the stars for safety."

Colors above the ground

It goes without saying that the sky is blue, but in Rhode Island it is as likely to be white, or a shade of gray. Even on a clear day, the ocean's moisture and haze lend a paleness to its blue, especially near the horizon. But on cold, crisp winter days, it can reveal its deepest darkest blue, and if you tilt your head and look straight up you'd almost think you could see the stars at midday.

The colors of the sky, its changing light and moods, have long captivated artists, poets, and photographers. Yet few have examined the daylight sky so minutely as Marcel Minnaert, a Dutch professor who in 1954 wrote The nature of light and colour in the open air. The professor explores the color of the sea, -- as seen from the shore or a boat, under clear skies or in a storm -- the elusive green flash seen at sunset over the ocean, "The Colour of Puddles along the Road," and "The Psychological Effect of a Landscape seen through Coloured Glasses": "Many people feel an inclination to laugh when looking through yellow glass," he states, authoritatively.

Blue shows everything in a sad light; red, he says, quoting Goethe, is "the colour that will be cast over heaven and earth on the day of judgment." And to intensify the effect of color, Professor Minnaert suggests that the observer bend over and look at the world upside-down and backward.

A blue sky can also be ominous. The greatest poet of the air, the French aviator Antoine de St. Exupery, wrote of an encounter with the sky when it turned against him, shortly after takeoff from a Patagonian airstrip:

... On this particular day I did not like the color of the sky. It was blue. Pure blue. . . . A hard blue sky that shone over the scraped and barren world while the fleshless vertebrae of the mountain chain flashed in the sunlight. Not a cloud. The blue sky glittered like a new-honed knife.

St. Exupery was caught in a "blue storm" -- an unseen, unpredictable, cloudless gale. He fought it for hours, and finally landed safely, though his heavy transport plane was battered, its cables shredded, its skin in tatters. He would not always be so lucky: He survived several crash landings, but vanished during a flight across the south of France in World War II.

Light and matter

Once I visited an exhibit of nautical art with a friend who is a ship captain. He scrutinized each picture for its trueness of detail in the masts and rigging and hull. But what he really looked for, he told me, was how the artist painted the water. That was the true measure of art, if the painter could capture the sea.

I always look at pictures that same way, but I look at the sky. While artists as a rule are aware of light and color, in many pictures the sky doesn't come alive. But some give the sky at least equal play in the picture, and among those is Kathy Hodge, a Rhode Island painter, who works in a tiny widow's watch atop her Warren house, where she can see forever.

"The sky is where I can get the most creative," she says. No flat blue backgrounds are to be found in her work. Her landscapes are abstract and vibrant. One, called "Restraint," shows a yellow field with brown stalks tied in bunches, and one of the bunches breaking free. Shades of blue and gray define the muscular sky, it's filled with movement and solidity, nothing dull or monochromatic about it. Another picture, which hangs in my living room, shows the night over the Rocky Mountains. A jumble of stars explode across the sky, mixed with highlights of deep reds and greens and blues, while the dark mountain slopes reflect the starlight.

Coming home

The sky hangs above and around us, quietly, sometimes stirring and demanding our attention, but often calmly content to be ignored. Sometimes in our busy lives we stop to savor a sunset or wonder at the moonrise. Occasionally we might catch a rapid movement outside a window, and be startled that birds are flying out there.

When we travel around the Earth, we learn to stretch our concept of what the sky looks like, and we learn not to take things for granted: supermarkets and freeways; beach roses and stone walls; the freshness of spring, the colors of fall, the long days of a Rhode Island summer. Perhaps one day, when we can travel to distant planets, we'll learn not to take other things for granted: the vault of blue sky, white clouds that change every day, air thick enough to sail on, and animals with wings.