When I was about 15 years old, I visited Colorado in the early springtime. I had never been there before, and I was struck by how blue the sky was. I had never seen such a blue sky before. In Southern California, the sky is always hazy, and it looks closer to white or grey than blue.

Sometimes, after a hard rain, the sky will be a vibrant blue, but it’s nothing like the sky I saw in Colorado. Still, I like the sky after the rain, with the big puffy white marshmallow clouds. They’re like big sponges washing the stagnant, polluted air.