Tumbleweed Junction

A place in life where the wind blows

Today on the Great Plains of Turtle Island we experienced a horrific wind storm. It is nothing unusual. It is not out of the ordinary. Every spring we experience a dozen or two or three of these wind storms.

I was at work today and during a slow period I went out front to look out the plate-glass windows. I saw trash blow down the street and I also saw tumbleweeds blowing in a circular fashion down the cobblestone street.

Hollywood uses tumbleweeds blowing and rolling by as a metaphor. I was watching it in real life (IRL). In its reality it was still a metaphor. And it was an explicit one because there were a heck of a lot of tumbleweeds blowing down the street.

The plant that produces tumbleweeds dies off in autumn and in the winds of spring it breaks off from its roots and tumbles across the land in the wind depositing its seeds. It is not the most exciting form of procreation but it works.

I’ve been watching tumbleweeds for most of my life. Today, in the calm of the inside behind the plate-glass window I scratched my beard and pondered the nature of tumbleweeds. I wondered what would be better; to be a dead tumbleweed being blown about by the lungs of nature or to be a dead tree.

Once, a hundred years ago, I lived in the Permian Basin and I was convinced that the wind there was the most persistent and disgusting wind anywhere on Earth. Now that I’ve been living on the Great Plains of Turtle Island I am no longer so convinced.

I imagined being an old dead tree. My carcass stands above ground but even in death I am anchored to the earth. Not even the strongest of winds uproots me and sends me tumbling end over end over the landscape.

I imagined being a tumbleweed. The wind rips me from my foundation and sends me on a journey of unknown destinations.

What would I rather be?

Damn, I just could not decide. I could feel what it would be like to be either of those beings but I could not pick a favorite. I love trees but I also love travel.

Then I thought what it would be like to be the wind.

I didn’t get to think about that for long before I was called back inside to deal with a work-related matter.

Eventually, I had another short break and I went back out to the plate-glass window and it was not long at all before I saw another tumbleweed rolling by. I so wanted to be that tumbleweed. I wanted to go outside and be blown away.

And then the phone rang and I had to get back to work.

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