A Typical Prairie Breeze

Tragedy on the window sill

Back on Sunday we had a heck of a windstorm. I was at work at my part-time job when the tornado sirens went off. My first reaction was to go outside and look around. This, of course, is thoroughly contrary to what the weather service suggests we do.

Walking out of the glass door I was pummeled by a torrent of sand-infused wind. The sky was brown. I was reminded of the countless sand storms I endured in my youth in the Great Desert Southwest. Those abrasive sand storms may be the only thing I don’t love about that region.

Suddenly, some metal piece of equipment blew off the roof of the building and landing with a screechy, metallic thud on the cobblestone parking lot, narrowly missing some parked cars. It looked like a part to a boat motor. What the hell was that doing on the roof of the building?

I went back inside and googled the weather. We were under an extreme thunderstorm alert. Winds were gusting up to 85 miles per hour. There was also the chance of hail and drenching rain.

I went back outside to the parking lot to look up into the sky. The tornado sirens were still blaring. The sky was no longer brown, though. It had turned rather black.

I know quite a few people who immediately and automatically get into a panic mode when the sirens go off. Not me. Instead, I listen to that siren in my abdominal region known as the solar-plexus. When that siren goes is when I head for the basement.

After a thorough sand-blasting I came back inside and proceeded to watch the storm through the plate-glass windows at the entrance to the building. A few raindrops began falling and were sprayed randomly about by the wind. I also noticed that there were quite a few feathers being blown around by the wind. That is something that I can’t help but notice.

So I stood there and watched the storm. I not only watched but tried to open myself to the supreme energy of the storm. I wanted to feel that energy flowing through me. There is nothing like the rush of storm energy. It’s way, way better than a Red Bull.

But I could not seem to fully silence my noggin in order to allow that storm energy to gush through. I kept thinking about the fact that before coming to work I had left all the windows in my apartment wide open.

So I came home from work that night to tragedy. Two of my beloved houseplants which were sitting on the window sill of one of my two westward-facing windows had been blown right off the window sill by the storm. On the carpet just below this window — WHICH I VACUUMED JUST THAT MORNING! — were broken pieces of pottery, what seemed like a wheelbarrow full of potting soil, and two forlorn-looking storm victims; one having lost one of its limbs, both on their sides on the carpet with their roots exposed. Both of them looked at me after I came into the apartment. They reached out their arms to me, “Help us! Please help us!”

So anyway, that is why I walked out to Wal-Mart today. Choosing not to feed the Black Snake Beast that is destroying nature, I walk everywhere that I go. I do not own a car. Most everything I need is just a few blocks away…. except Wal-Mart, which is out past the edge of town (where real estate is slightly cheaper). And since the Super Wal-Mart came in a few years before I showed up here, it seems that most stores have gone out business. Now, if you want clay pots, the only place to find them is at Wal-Mart — and only for part of the year!

Our local Wal-Mart decided to carry clay pots only in Spring. I found this out a couple of months ago when I went there for some clay pots. Caring for houseplants is something one does all year long. Why would they only carry pots for part of the year?

My houseplants are out of control. The way they are growing and pushing me out of my own apartment is like something out of a horror movie. I am constantly needing to get more clay pots and more potting soil. It is like feeding some strange insatiable beast.

Or is it the beast within?

Anyway, it is now Spring and, good to their word, Wal-Mart had clay pots. My two beloved storm victims back home in ICU would soon have new homes. I would like a new home, too, but the children come first.

It is about a thirty-five minute walk to Wal-Mart. The first half of that walk is through quasi-urban small town dynamics; gas stations, convenience stores, fast-food restaurants, office buildings, used car lots, auto parts stores, liquor stores, and cemeteries. The second half of the walk is through open prairie.

I always found it rude that Wal-Mart always builds their stores on the very edge of towns rather than in the center of town where it can be more a part of the community. It also disappoints me that this causes a significant amount of extra gasoline consumption for everyone who has to drive out there. For those of us who refuse to bow to social convention by owning a car, it can be infuriating — especially in bad weather.

But as I walked across that open prairie on the second half of my walk to Wal-Mart the weather was nothing short of perfect. It was sunny and warm and there was only a very slight prairie breeze. It was a typical prairie breeze. It was the kind of breeze that softly caresses and kisses your skin rather than sand-blasting it. It was the kind of breeze that can suck you out of your thinking patterns and bring you right, smack-dab, into the NOW. It was the kind of breeze that makes you feel truly alive.

When I walk I try to turn off all the thinking going on in my noggin. I try to become an empty vessel through which to experience the incredible life-force of the planet that is my home and through which I am walking. It ain’t always easy but it is always easier while I am walking through this patch of open prairie. Mother Nature becomes undeniably in-your-face. It enters you.

Feeling the ever so faint breeze on me, I thought about how wind can be both gentle and ferocious. And then I tried to stop thinking about that.

I have always been a ‘mountain person.’ If I cannot see a mountain on any horizon around me I feel lost at sea. With this thought I was reminded that today is my anniversary of the day I arrived here on the Great Plains exactly six years ago. When I first arrived here I said to myself, “Okay, a year maybe; a year and a half tops.” And today it has now been exactly six years that I have been living here. So much for my mental declarations. I shook my head to empty it of thoughts.

But being here all this time I have discovered a new energy; the energy of the prairie. It is very, very different to what I was used to but it is in fact a very caring, nurturing, peaceful, and exciting energy. In just the right conditions it can be downright transcending.

There is always a little blessing on the walk to Wal-Mart.

So here I am now; sitting at my desk, my fingers dancing on the laptop keyboard. The windows are wide open and a very soft gentle breeze is flowing through my home. There are some birds singing and there is the sound of occasional traffic. But there is no TV on or music playing. It is still and very quiet and peaceful.

But I cannot quite become that desired empty vessel at my desk. Why not? Because I hear voices.

In the back of my noggin I hear the two voices of my beloved jade trees still in ICU, “Hey, human dude! You already went to Wal-Mart and got new pots. But you just set the pots down and got on the internet. How rude! We’re dying here and desperately need new homes!”

So I must close this meandering missive. My children need me. The emptiness on my window sill is starting to bother me. The two jade trees won’t shut up. It is time to redirect my fingertips from the keyboard to the bag of potting soil I bought today. It is time to get some dirt under my fingernails in one of the most loving ways to do so.

It is wind that makes trees stronger. It is good for humans, too. It is good to keep the windows open.

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