Ice Cream Castles in the Air

I have been accused of having my head in the clouds my whole life, to which I plead guilty. I am more of a floater than a planner. It’s probably why I am only starting to really travel in these recent years of marriage to Stan-the Man, with the ever-present travel plan. After a trip to Alaska, Canada, and Oregon that spanned 25 consecutive days, I was asked to pick a highlight. Frankly, travel talk (as in we went here, we did this) bores me, even if I’m the one doing the traveling. 

There was one moment, however, when the world seemed to stop along with all its troubles. Stan and I were just settling into our cabin our first day at sea on an Alaska cruise. Our travel buddy, Alan Zieben, stopped by to check out our digs when suddenly, a thick fog enveloped the ship, completely obscuring the view. This drew us all to the balcony for the rare sensation of standing in the middle of a cloud. You could barely see the balcony rail as the white fog merged into gray then slowly darkened into a smoky black. 

Just when it couldn’t get any more ominous, the smoky condensation began to pull away like a curtain, revealing a dazzling image. There we stood like Dorothy, the Scarecrow, and the Tin Man staring at Oz. One minute we were anticipating a storm. Then poof. We were staring at a magnificent city of ice castles glistening in the sun. You left-brain types will want to know the name of this mass of land. I don’t know. There are so many mountains in this region that most don’t have names. That frees me to my own random imagination. Here’s my dreamy thinking of what we saw:

It’s a diamond city floating somewhere between earth and sky, a place where everyone has looked at life from all sides and realizes there is no reason to fight. They realize that they see only part of a whole, looking to each other to see the rest. No one has the answers alone, but collectively, in objective curiosity, they shine. They don’t understand why or how, but they are drawn by the magnetic force of the mystery. 

I’m so glad Stan and Alan were there witnessing this moment at sea with me. Yes, it actually happened. Though they have their own takes, I’m sure. For me, something about that moment made me want to notice more moments. I often say life is your curriculum. I knew I would write about this, but how?

A week later, while eating lunch in a Vancouver park, a man with a guitar and a particularly pleasant voice strummed a familiar tune as the words ice cream castles in the air floated from his lips. Well, there’s the title. What’s the rest? 

Back in Houston, I did a little research on that classic song, and its less obvious title Both Sides, Now. It was written in 1966 by Canadian singer and songwriter Joni Mitchell, early in her career. Her inspiration came in a single moment, flying on an airplane while reading the book Henderson the Rain King, by Saul Bellow. The protagonist, Eugene Henderson, is a millionaire, baffled by his own misery, trying to understand himself. Early in the book, Henderson finds himself in an airplane on his way to Africa. The book was published in 1959, back when air travel was still recognized as the miracle it is, even for adults.

One passage in that book jumped out at Mitchell. And I dreamed down at the clouds, and thought that when I was a kid I had dreamed up at them, and having dreamed at clouds from both sides, as no other generation of men has done, one should be able to accept his death very easily. 

Mitchell said she read that line, looked down at the clouds from her plane, then put down the book and started writing. I’ve looked at life from both sides now / from up and down, and still somehow / It’s cloud illusions I recall / I really don’t know clouds, at all. 

Within a year, Both Sides, Now was picked up by singer Judy Collins, catapulting both women’s careers. Collins won a Grammy with the song recorded in 1967. Mitchell did her own simple acoustic guitar version in 1969. Over a thousand versions of the song have been recorded, including by Willie Nelson. 

And now, life has pulled together a series of moments, when Saul Bellow wrote those words in Henderson the Rain King, when Joni Mitchell read them, and when countless people like you and me joined in the inspiration at a particular moment in time. As Saul Bellow writes in Henderson the Rain King: “Imagination, imagination, imagination. It converts to actual. It sustains. It alters. It redeems.”  

Note to self: Pay attention in the moment. Something’s lost and something’s gained in living every day. Whatever turns this troubled world around, it starts with a dream.

Joni Mitchell has been singing Both Sides, Now since her 20s. At each phase her voice has deepened and enriched with experience. Last year, at the age of 80, Mitchell sang it in an iconic moment in the Grammy Awards.