Oklahoma Skies

Oklahoma is a beautiful place. Believe me.

When my husband and I crossed into Oklahoma on our way to Virginia, a spectacle of organic colors revealed itself after miles of dry, pale land. The rolling hills stretched all the way to the horizon, rising in gentle waves of grass and brush, and the color clung more richly to the distant slopes. It felt like a prediction of what was coming next.

Oklahoma skies are the widest I have ever seen, and their infinite shades looked so good against all that big open space. It’s as if sky and land are in communion there. And there's so much space even for chalky morning mist to rise above the ridges, giving off an aura of mystery I felt eager to explore.

Being in Oklahoma brought a familiar feeling — a kind of emotional submersion into a childhood memory, where hay and swallows ruled over the landscape.

We are so intertwined with our surroundings in ways we sometimes overlook. Just like water shapes mountain ranges, the land shapes our thoughts and our feelings. And so, I felt a little crack inside me widen when I was in Oklahoma. If I could have looked into it, I’d have seen my younger self riding my bike through fields of wheat in my small town in Northern Italy. The difference now was that I was in a bigger, wider place — so big it seemed to hold past, present, and future all at once.

When we left Oklahoma behind, I had the sensation that there’s a different America in every state you go to. This country feels a little like the sky over places like Oklahoma — so many shades of color that it’s impossible to pick a favorite.

Gouache on paper, 5×7”