Windstorm

Windstorm

This past week we have had strong, relentless wind. The kind of wind that comes in gusts, that huffs and puffs around the dry red earth, raising dust, sending yellow pollen streaming off the  pines. Things rattle the house and bang the windows, things like twirl-sticks to prevent birds from hitting glass, like hanging pots full of quirky succulents, like deck furniture and umbrellas. Commonly, in my neighborhood the wind splits trees weakened by pine beetle and oak borer beetle. The crack and thud are unmistakable and unnerving. Each night, I struggle to sleep, the sounds and creaking translate into nightmares and anxiety dreams. I awake in the night tense, full of mysterious angst and trepidation.

I know or hope I know the wind will pass, but not when, and in my dis-ease it becomes a metaphor for this world, this up-set, sliced open world that finds itself topsy-turvey, like a tin can lid in a gale. Oligarchs are held up as humanitarians, battery salesmen wielding so much power they can topple a whole nation.

November 3^rd wafts stealthily toward us driven by the cycles of our political system and we don’t know what norms will splinter or hold, what state will deliver a reason for hope or a return to this powerful current of despair.

And outside my window, this  mistral makes the world seem so much more at odds, makes nerves jangle and stabs me behind the eyes. I remember in Colorado during the warm chinook wind, I would prostrate my body to the ground to rest from the unrelenting gusts. We used to giggle in the grass that we were Dorothy from Oz and might wind up in Kansas with a happy ending.

But now, will Kansas be swept up on our election night and gently calm our worries? Will Georgia, Michigan, Alaska do the same? Where will this calamitous wind blow our grandchildren’s futures?  Into the chaos of a tempest, or a soft landing on some sunny shore?

And when the winds finally die away, will we be wrapped in blanketing calm and the warm, warm colorful embrace of fall?  Or the treacherous silence before the renewed vigor of the storm?

The leaves are just starting to change, the wind tears at them in fury, yet they hold on, determined to complete their joyous dance of color. The ground squirrel clings to the bird feeder as it sways, twists, and turns. His jowls are packed with sunflower seeds to sustain him through the storm.

Forever there is tenacity and hope it seems, even in the darkest times. And I will hold on like the leaves, like the squirrel, like the last gasp of this now dying wind.