Mountain In the Sky

From the airplane window, the world becomes simple again: a wide blue sky, a soft layer of cloud, and a single mountain rising through it all like it has been waiting there the whole time.

There’s something quietly comforting about seeing Mount Rainier from above the cloud line. The land below turns into a patchwork of dark water and distant shoreline, half-hidden, as if the earth is keeping its own secrets. Up here, the noise feels far away. Even the clouds look less like weather and more like a landscape—slow, bright hills you could almost imagine walking across.

I always forget how travel can make familiar places feel new. One moment you’re moving through routines and roads, and the next you’re looking down at them, reduced to shapes and shadows. The mountain doesn’t change, but you do. You notice how steady it is, how it holds its place without asking for attention.

Maybe that’s why this view sticks: it feels like a small reminder that there are still quiet, unmoving things in the middle of all our motion. A mountain in the sky, keeping watch over Seattle, while the clouds drift on like thoughts that never quite settle.