This is a wind that teases tresses into bird nests and whittles bones. The trees are sailing! The sky is a billowing high sea. All the tumbleweed has rolled into Wyoming.
After I took this little walk last night, I realized I still had much daylight to spend (for the days are growing noticeably long now) so I took the pointers running with me, up the mountain. I felt the first terrible gust of wind when I rambled around a steep corner on the edge of a draw. It hit me square on and I felt glued in place. Tater was up the side hill from me, searching for Hungarian partridge, as his instincts insist. I tried to call him in to me, but the wind repelled my voice and swept my words down the mountain. I opened my mouth to shout again and my hair blew in and caught on my teeth. Once more, I called, and most miraculously, Tater heard. To me he came, we flew down the mountain and into the quiet cleft beneath the mountain where we make our home. Robert was waiting for us. He had prepared dinner and we ate it by candle light in the Airstream. We were safe from the tornado outside, as we nibbled at our pizza and talked endlessly about our summer plans. The dogs and cat were curled in sleepy doughnuts on the Airstream floor and above us I could hear the Austrian pine snapping and bending in the hands of the wind. By the time our little dinner date was over and we had demobilized our feast, the gusts of wind had turned steady and the world felt as though it was staunchly braced and deep-root-sinking.
We lay in bed, awake for hours, listening to the house groan. I wondered about the birds and where they were resting in this raw squall. I imagined the deer bedded down on the side hills, whispering and huffing in the sagebrush. We rose in the wee hours to secure a portion of aluminum sheet that came loose from the Airstream refurbishing pile by the studio building. What a mighty rumpus was that. All night long, I barely slept, I was set on edge by wind. When I did sleep, I tried to shatter my teeth and this morning my jaw hurts. I find myself wondering, are we all so affected by our immediate environments? Today, the wind continues its screaming, the trees are moving like blades of wheat on the great plains, I feel dishevelled and gritty. I think I’m probably just silly and sensitive but I can’t shake the feeling that my soul is pressed just as hard by this wind as the land is. I step outside and I squint through my hair as it wraps across my face. Gestures seem just as lost as words in the tumult of the gale, so I cast them off like messages in glass bottles on the currents of the sea and wonder if anyone will ever find them, out there, in the great wide and unconquerable space of the glorious West.
It is only February, but I feel March is already here and has entered like a lion. I think I should batten down the hatches, gird my loins…but on the other hand, I like the adventure of letting the wind take me where it will. I’m Canadian, but sometimes I’m so ridiculously French about things. This is laissez-faire at it’s finest!
This wind. This spring weather has me wholly distracted and each time I sit down to write, some unforeseen duty draws me up and out and I sprint around like a scoundrel while running my errands and I fight with and against myself to make time for creative work. Life feels fast. Is it just this time of year? Are you moving through your days like a freight train too? I feel windswept and pared down to the basic functionalities of life. I can only think to myself, every day, thank goodness for the expanding daylight hours, I am able to squeeze more out of every day that passes and this seems to help displace the overwhelmed state of being that threatens me to my very marrow, at times! Some other portion of myself says, “Oh! Let it be! Let it be.” And so, sometimes, I do.
This all sounds so melodramatic. It’s this wind. It’s made me inwardly stormy.
At any rate, it’s Wednesday now! Half the week has already dissolved! I would lament this but I know time treats everyone the same. I hope you are all well. I hope it’s windy where you are. Braid your hair, put on a light pair of gloves, go out into the day and let it take you where it will.
x
Wind can get to you, that’s for sure! We don’t experience it here in New England unless there is a hurricane, but I’ve been west and I remember.
My days are currently off-kilter, as my husband quit his day job a month ago to focus on our home business. Going from never seeing him to never not is umm….different 😉 I’m sure we will hit our stride soon.
Blessings to you and yours on this wild day!
Good luck getting used to being together more often than not! 🙂 I wonder if you’ll prefer having him home after you get used to it? I love it when Rob is home, though we live apart six months of the year — he doesn’t exactly have a normal 9-5 job…
Thanks for being here today!
I am glad to hear that all the tumbleweed ended up in Wyoming! You wouldn’t want them around. I love wind, we had hurricane velocity winds during Thanksgiving that uprooted everything. I don’t know why but I get extremely excited when the earth yawns or sneezes, so to speak. I think the earth is waking up. For us down here it has allergies and it is sneezing.
In OK, I saw for the first time real tornados that pulled roofs off of huge buildings. I hid in a ditch with my friends to see it close. I wondered about the birds, they got tossed about.
The lightning show is the best part, get fresh ozone, smells like watermelons to me…
Thankfully we have no winds here today. The days are longer and I love that. The months are hurrying in a frantic pace and I don’t love that at all. This year appears different but I am sure it is the same time unit.
Your bright colored outfit is good, so you don’t get lost, and your bright colored soul is beyond lovely. Chat with you later..sending you love! xx
Tornados are terrifying. I often think to myself that the element of air isn’t respected enough, when it comes to it’s raw power. It can do awful things. Or it can sing you to sleep. Isn’t that strange? The elements all seem to have Jekyll and Hyde personalities.
It’s true. I’m like a pylon in the wilderness.
***NOTE: “PYLON” is Canadian for orange traffic cone.
You would have to be the loveliest pylon out there. I personally love orange and purple. xx
“but I can’t shake the feeling that my soul is pressed just as hard by this wind as the land is.”
It was windy here last night too and I feel exactly the same way.
I remember when it used to blow in the desert, when we lived at Achii Hanyo…I really thought our house would turn over there, but it never did.
Love you.
oh, yes. very blustery here today. branches are strewn all over the yard and deck. wind makes me very agitated at night when all manner of unknown things smack against the house, but in daylight it is decidedly less threatening. however, i think i’ll stay indoors for a bit where the air is calm and still…
xoxo
HA!
Well, that’s exactly right. Last summer, the plum tree out front was in the habit of dragging it’s knobby little fingertips across the big living room window and the first night I heard it, I nearly jumped out of my skin. I start to feel like Little Red Riding Hood in a forest full of shadows. I kind of love it though…the wonderful fright of it all.
I miss you.
You know what I mean.
x
I love your magnificence (and raging bone-cleansing winds, too).
WOOSH!
This reminded me of:
Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing thro’.
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.
You’re a beauty.
I’ve always loved this little poem.
Wind? Check.
Braids? Check.
Light gloves? Check, sort of. Do light mitts count?
The desire to ramble and see where I end up? Double check!
Thank you for such a lovely post. I could read pages and pages of you (please write a book…)
🙂
Girl.
Wish we could go out in braids and gloves for a lovely little ramble together. x
PS Thanks for being so kind about my writing. xx
a restlessness seems to be stirring with in….
makes me wonder what is to come for you
I still dwell in winters stillness…what remains
it is like the pause before the exhale
I am not sure what is to come….but I smile, and am ready
I am glad today that you had time to write….your words are so beautiful
they make me smile
love and light
I don’t feel like I had a winter here this year. Perhaps that is why I am so restless!
xxx
We have also been experiencing the lovely gusts, though of the tropical variety. I have layed in bed with my new canine friend curled at my feet, and my lovely human companion at my side, listening to our old house creak and moan…It’s force making the avocado leaves rip down from the tree like spinning tops, it’s coolness on my skin, all providing just enough of a chill for my warm blooded hawaiian living body! I heart the wind!
Sounds glorious!!!
In the meanwhile, send me all your avocados. 🙂
xx
I couldn’t say if it’s the wind and weather, or just this season and the nature of time passing, but I, too, feel like the handle on my own days are just out of grasp. I’m floundering to take care of what I should, while still making time to be creative. And even scheduling time to be creative seems contradictory. A part of me also wants to just let it all go as it will and see where I end up. That seems best when you don’t know where you’re going anyways.
Oh.
What a relief. It always comes as such comfort to know I’m not alone.
I agree…that does seem best when you don’t know where you’re going anyways.
I love those blustery days… But it does make it hard to sleep! I used to live on a sailboat, and when it blew hard at night it whistled and sang through the rigging, and rocked the boat like a cradle. Soothing and eerie. I don’t know if everyone is affected by the weather. I know I am, but perhaps others, who live farther from the land, don’t notice. The question reminds me of a passage from Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,”
All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows so that even here, in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and to recognise, the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like untamed beasts in a cage.
Hope you get a respite from the wind tonight!
Wonderful WONDERFUL quote.
I don’t mind if I don’t sleep tonight. Last night, I thought about getting up, making a cup of tea and reading for a stint. If sleep doesn’t come tonight, that’s what I’ll do. Thanks for being here, sailboat sweetie. x
YES! We have wind – probably some of yours 🙂 Forecast is up to 70mph gusts this evening. All the critters (sheep, horses, milk cows) are in their barns and hopefully secure for the night.
Blessings to you! Marcia~Wyoming
AH HA!!!!
You have some of my wind AND some of my tumbleweeds!!!!! HEE HEE HEE!!!!!! I hope you manage to rest tonight, despite the gusts…though a stormy, windy night can be quite ambient and glorious. Sweet dreams! xx
you’ve casted a new mantra upon me: let it be. let it be.
now more then ever, i’ve come to realize just how vulnerable i am to different environments. (from drastic shifts in mood, to clammy hands) whether it’s the wipping winds, the towering downtown canyons, or unsettling urban sprawl…there always seems to be a fluttering counterpart. without, I would disintegrate.
you inspire me to keep searching for MY balance.
it’s being fully in tune. let it ride. let it be.
be well,
-lu
Lu! Thanks for being here today!
And thanks for sharing this…you’re a beauty.
i feel it too.
I thought you would. 🙂
A strong wind definitely stirs something up in all of us. When a heavy fog blows into the city (SF) it sometimes puts me on edge…
I know just what you mean.
Ha. “It’s windsday now.” hee..
PS. I live in the windy-est, windy-most, wind-swept place on the planet. Just below Niwot Ridge in Colorado. I think it is Chief Niwot’s spirit that blows upon this land. We’re expecting gusts of 110 mph with sustained of 60mph tonight. I sleep hard through this, but my dreams are WILD. Hello Chief. Oh, yes, we do remember you.
That’s insane…..that’s insane wind. Do you live in a concrete bunker??? 🙂 Be safe!
There is change coming, I feel it too. I feel the wind is blowing in change not only in the weather, but in my spirit as well. I am excited and anxious to see what it brings.
Be well.
Go get the children’s book Owl at Home by Arnold Lobel (of Frog and Toad fame). There is a lovely little story about winter wind in it. And another about tear drop tea that I’m sure you would love as well.
I am soooooooooo scared of the wind! That sounds like a day I would hide under my bedsheets away from it’s wrath. Some people are afraid of heights, dogs, unforseen things alas I am only afraid of the wind. Perhaps because I cannot control it? Perhaps because it can be so vicious? I took a nervous breath just thinking about it. Silly human I can be. 🙂
I’m afraid of wind, too. My dog cries about it all day. I carry my shoulders up around my ears and try not to look out the window. And I grew up in Chicago (the Windy City). Go figure.
I would like it if most days were warm, but totally cloudy. Would like it if the weather was mostly like spring, sometimes like July, and with an occasional snowstorm (which, here in Portland, Oregon, we never got this year either — and we usually get at least one whole day of snow). But never windy.