Nature is ever at work building and pulling down, creating and destroying, keeping everything whirling and flowing, allowing no rest but in rhythmical motion, chasing everything in endless song out of one beautiful form into another. ~ John Muir
The wind blows mighty here in Boulder, Colorado, barreling down the canyon and whipping branches off of trees and windows out of houses (sometimes). Driving this time of year requires both hands and complete attention because if you’re not blowing across the lanes, someone else might be. And forget finding your newspaper in the morning, unless you get up at half past crack of dawn to waylay the delivery person.
This time of year, cats fidget, dogs cower, and god only knows what the birds do. A friend who grew up here told me that her elementary school used to call wind days - like snow days, you know, only windy. I grew up in San Francisco, and the only weather phenomenon that troubled us was the occasional earthquake. Not weather, exactly, but still . . . . Mostly we just rode them out. When I was in junior high, we were so shaken by an earthquake that we had to file quietly out to the bleachers where the principal addressed us, telling us not to worry because surely our parents were just fine, at which point, most of the girls broke into tears and hung all over each other, imagining that the hillside had come down and buried Mother where she stood ironing Daddy’s white shirts.
That day we were all dismissed from school with the admonition to go straight home, and being a good girl, I did. When I walked into the house, Mother was changing the baby. “What are you doing home so early?” she said. That’s mostly how we dealt with earthquakes: What? They sent you home from school?!
That one was big enough to be accompanied by a night full of aftershocks. I slept in an Army cot kind of bed that was against one wall. By morning my bed had been shaken to the middle of the room.
Wind? Big deal.
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