A Peculiar Wind

There is a peculiar event that occurs here as the lower country warms and air currents rise to my island in the sky. I can hear the wind coming from a distance, like a corporeal entity with form and definition. Were I to look down on these lands from above, I would be able to see blocks of the forest succumbing to the ministrations of this wind; acres of Ponderosa bending and swaying as if to allow some tremendous creature to pass. Imagine a coyote in the tall grass. The coyote cannot be seen, but from the vantage point of a man, his movements are discernible. I can sense the wind, beginning at the cliff's edge and traveling in a not so direct path. Somehow it always finds me.

 The silence of this Arcadian landscape accentuates the event. The rustle and rumble of the trees produces a sound so like a truck on a gravel road as to be indistinguishable. I hear it from the distance and my ears follow as it builds and grows closer until finally it is upon me. The lofty pines commence their frantic dance. A moment later it is still. I can listen as this passing traveler fades into the distance, around the corner, and ebbs to silence once more.

On lonely mornings at my camp, over coffee, I believe it is an approaching truck. It excites me to think I might see people. I find myself hoping to meet them. I need to communicate. I need to hear the stories of others. I need to smile and celebrate and share.

“Now this one has to be a truck”, I would tell Maya. “No wind makes a sound like that. Listen. It has just passed that narrow place where we saw the white wolf”. Then the lofty pines commence their frantic dance once more. This time they seem to mock me. These visitations make me lonelier, so I descend the valley and busy myself at the lake. (Where the wind is only the wind).