When I was a young boy, I liked looking for shapes in the clouds. I still do. And sometimes, with the right kind of puffy-white clouds, I could perform an illusion in my own mind.

Lying on the warm grass on a mid-summer day, that in-between time when school was a memory and the next grade still weeks in the future, watching clouds was a worthwhile endeavor. A wise use of our precious time.

Something we should spend more time doing. There’s magic right above our heads if we just look for it.

The illusion was a simple one, as the best always are. The trick was to focus on the edge of the roof of my house or a tall tree, keeping the clouds in the background, so it appeared the earth was moving instead of the clouds.

I believed I could see and feel the world spinning through space.

The other day, looking out my window over a sky brimming with perfect puffy clouds, I was able to relive that illusion. And the magic is still there.

And just for the briefest of moments, I was that 8-year-old boy again, with the clouds looking down on me as I rode the world.

Life does not get much better.