This past year has been one filled with sickness, isolation, and loss for families. The pandemic that imposed all of this also pushed us out of our abodes and into nature. A good thing – though a less likely occurrence in the most isolating of seasons; and when the winter temperatures convinced us to venture outside, the wind too frequently forced us to reconsider, restricting us with the dreaded words, “wind chill factor”.
The wind proved a steadfast companion this year, though with all the variant adjectives to describe it, “pal” wasn’t among them. We came to accept the fact that 40 – 50 mile an hour winds would begin late in the day and get stronger as the night progressed. In spite of the gusty howling that shook the house, rattled the panes, pounded the door, roared in the chimney, our household only lost power during the hurricane, but that didn’t prevent us from preparing for the potential loss. How many times this winter did we fuel the generator, prepare jugs of water for the kitchen, buckets for the bathrooms, setting out candles and flashlights on Christmas Eve along with the cookies and carrots?
Where I grew up, the wind I encountered daily was a Gulf breeze that started out gentle, but by evening would become blustery. Sometimes the wind would instigate dust devils, or sand storms, or turn into hurricanes, or chance tornados. I’ve survived a few of them. Here you call them “Nor’easters”; we call them “Northerners”. Besides the obvious dark storm clouds rolling in, we’d smell oil and gas mixed in with the wind. In this context, the term never had any association with our northern neighbors. This neighbor told us — autumn is here, and winter is coming.
In high school, I ran track. This meant running against and with the wind on certain sections of the track. I learned to lean into the wind on one straight away and curve, and then to let it push me as I ran with it on another. The coach was oblivious to anything other than the speed of the runners. He never seemed to notice that the wind was constantly blowing around 20-30 miles an hour when we practiced. Nor did he notice how many times he’d chase his ball cap after getting it blown off, or his papers from the clipboard he’d carry to write our times. He was too busy yelling at us to “Go Faster!” to notice anything else.
Windmills dotted the landscape on the plains. They were the lifelines to the farm and ranch animals. When they broke, my father, a plumber, would have to fix them. Beginning at the age of seven, I was the designated volunteer for this job. My father would never ask, “Do you feel like climbing one of them rickety wooden windmills today?” What was the point in asking when “no” was an unacceptable answer? Off we’d go — him driving silently and me saying a couple of “Hail Mary’s” and “Our Fathers” under my breath. After we’d arrive at the site and unload all the tools, he’d look at me, look at the windmill, and say, “Well, what are you waiting for? The sooner you get up there, the sooner we get home.” My job was to climb up and tie off the blades. He didn’t care how rotten some of the boards could be, how high it was, or the fact that once I got up there, I had to stay up there until he was done. Let’s not forget that the wind could be still one moment and then suddenly gusty the next. Of course, he’d joke about me not losing my head or a limb while I was waiting for the blades to stop — ha, ha. That’s not really funny, especially when you start climbing up and find some of the boards tied with bailing wire, or missing nails. I had to be sure to remember my exact route down. As he’d remind me – “I don’t want you falling and scaring the livestock!” What about – “Be careful”? Later on in my life, he told me it was because he didn’t want me to get scared!
The windmill did prepare me for my future on a naval ship. I was the one who would volunteer to paint the crow’s nest, underway or in port. A cakewalk after my windmill days. The wind was no more or no less, and though you had to deal with the rolling and dipping at sea, and the OD Officer would need to be reminded to shut off the radar while I was doing my job, the significant difference was that I had rope lines to keep me from being blown off the crow’s nest.
All of these earlier experiences have helped me to adjust to my retirement, a word synonymous with “gardening”. As much as I’d like to spend my time flying a kite with our grandson, there are those fallen leaves and limbs to deal with, the cause of the vast accumulation: the wind. After watching the branches battling one another during the wind storms that demanded the trees sacrifice some of their limbs, spring revealed the survival of the fittest, the lawn littered with those that “took one for the team”. We’re left with the question of where all the leaves came from. We only have one maple and a couple of oaks, but with our unnatural abundance, one would think we lived in a grove of them. To further the injustice of having to remove everyone else’s leaves from our yard “downwind”, the spring breeze mocks the task of raking, determined to scatter all the leaves that have been piled up in heaps to be hauled away. I find myself yet again engaged in another sort of race against the wind. You learn to ready the tarp and anchor it in place with your feet, but in the split second it takes to cover it with the leaves that will hold it in place, it flies up and wrestles you, or cavorts down the street.
The wind has made this year more laborious, but at least I’m still on the planet. And when spring’s gardening projects are completed, there’ll be time to grab a pillow and a good book and occupy an empty hammock to enjoy its gentle rocking, courtesy of the wind.
Juan Arriola