Friday, December 02, 2005
The Wind
The wind shows us how close to the edge we are.
__ Joan Didion __
To the well known unavoidables in life, death and taxes, people here in the plains states might add the wind, for it is a constant here, sometimes stinging and cold, and even frightening at times when billowing thunderheads in the night rise to 50,000 feet, then suddenly collapse of their own weight, throwing out downdraft winds that can reach a hundred miles an hour in a few moments, tossing about corn silos and semi trucks like so many toys. The wind can also be gentle and warm, though, pushing puffy white clouds across the sapphire blue skies of April. Today, however, we have a northeast wind, which like the ill wind of fable, never brings anybody any good. At the equinoxes, it brings day after day of low, dull clouds off the Great Lakes, and dreary dampness. In the winter, it inevitably brings freezing mist, followed by fine, swirling snow. It is a wind of meanness, a wind that feels thin and yet sharp, that finds little openings in your coat and seeps cold into your very marrow and soul. Many of the small town bars in Iowa are built of grey, concrete block, with no windows, which I've always found to be particularly depressing, but on days like this, it seems to make some sense.
__ Joan Didion __
To the well known unavoidables in life, death and taxes, people here in the plains states might add the wind, for it is a constant here, sometimes stinging and cold, and even frightening at times when billowing thunderheads in the night rise to 50,000 feet, then suddenly collapse of their own weight, throwing out downdraft winds that can reach a hundred miles an hour in a few moments, tossing about corn silos and semi trucks like so many toys. The wind can also be gentle and warm, though, pushing puffy white clouds across the sapphire blue skies of April. Today, however, we have a northeast wind, which like the ill wind of fable, never brings anybody any good. At the equinoxes, it brings day after day of low, dull clouds off the Great Lakes, and dreary dampness. In the winter, it inevitably brings freezing mist, followed by fine, swirling snow. It is a wind of meanness, a wind that feels thin and yet sharp, that finds little openings in your coat and seeps cold into your very marrow and soul. Many of the small town bars in Iowa are built of grey, concrete block, with no windows, which I've always found to be particularly depressing, but on days like this, it seems to make some sense.
// posted by IBOY @ 2:36 PM 
