Today Chronicle columnist and fellow Oaklander Jon Carroll wrote:

About 10 years ago I realized that my idea of reality was changing. It was as though I were in a room, an ordinary square room with a sofa and a table and floor lamp, and slowly all the edges began separating. Slowly the walls pulled away from the floor and the ceiling, and the walls pulled away from each other. I could see something between the cracks.

For want of a better word, I called the space outside the walls "sky."

The rest of the piece is definitely worth reading. I think I know what Carroll is talking about: A couple of years ago now, I was sitting in a room of my own when there was suddenly a fantastic explosion that blew the walls out about three feet, and the sky just poured in. Everything has been different since then. In my happy moments, I am literally overwhelmed by the beauty of said sky, which I had never even noticed before.