It is spring in the valley - the San Luis Valley. And although drier than most years it has come with the wind we've all grown ....slightly...somewhat...well...we really don't like it but we've kinda learned to deal with it because not a single one of us has slightest hint of control at all on the weather. The wind is about the only thing the weather people can get right. We can bet on it when he/she says wind, it will be an accurate prediction. We can't always be sure when we hear "Rain in the forecast today" but when there's even mention of a 'breeze across south central Colorado' we can bet on wind. Unfortunately, the lottery companies know this so there's no such chance of winning money on gambling where the wind is concerned. If there were a chance, we here in the valley would all put money down on the chance of wind, all be right and have to share the pot, and all come up three dollars to our one in debt.
The wind is like one of those people - yeah, you know THOSE people. The people that come into our lives and try to change or control us. The people that seem the most difficult to deal with, understand, and just don't go away. We don't really want it - admit it we all know how easy it would be to have sunshine and rainbows and people we understand easily always around us - but it's there. It saps all moisture from anything that might have moisture. It takes the top soil to another yard, farm, or state. It chaps the hide and the soul. It bends trees and backs. It can take the hard work of callused hands and turn it into something of its own design. It can drain all our physical and emotional strength. You know, just like those people that come into our lives and try to change or control us.
I've said it before of those people that come into our lives trying to change or control "You can not control what other people do or say about us but you can control how you handle what people do or say about us." In other words - we can let it build or break us.
It's the same with the wind. We can chose how we handle it's arrival and seemingly ever consistent presence. We can grow very bitter about forces we can not control or we can turn and look at ourselves and see how our character and constitution can possibly grow from the challenges it brings. And in facing wind we've been tested and tried just as when we face THOSE people come into our lives.
We've learned how to channel and direct its power into energy. We've learned how to bend with it so we don't break, walk with it at our backs and let it lift us along the way. Sometimes we've turned to face it and fight it as best we can, build wind breaks to protect from it for example and...of course...watched some of those wind breaks actually break. We've learned - though sometimes it's hard to remember those lessons - there's good things to be had from the wind. The Sand Dunes National Park would not exist save for the wind that winds its way through the valley picking up and carrying as much sand as possible into the ever changing dunes of the northeastern corner of the Valley. I've noticed that when the wind is blowing there's no bugs - no millers or locust and no mosquitoes. It is my wish that these bugs all have been blown to the North Pole where they freeze and are someday found by a scientist who can not recall what species they once were. However, it's more likely they've just been blown to the Sand Dunes where they will remain safely buried beneath the sand until the wind dies down and they can return to their duties of annoyance.
We've also learned - though sometimes bitterly - to accept our own strengths and weaknesses where the wind is concerned. With the wind comes diseases and such often test our mortality. It is one of those facts that weaken the body and spirit, pain the heart, and torture the mind. It saps the much needed moisture those crops well known to the Valley crave - livestock included. Having to watch is sometimes as painful to the heart as suffering from our own injuries. Then there's the politicians that seem to have the answers to everything during election years - even the wind. Ahhh, sadly the wind can carry away the locusts but the politicians, like those weeds we can't poison during a drought, remain ever present.
Like THOSE people the wind tests us. It questions our strength, makes us question our strength, and sometimes rubs salt- or dirt - into the wound of injured pride. It can blur the bright of the day and tempt us to turn our backs on what we know and trust. How we handle the tests of the wind is completely in our hands. Like THOSE people we could welcome the wind and let it test its worth against us, show that we are capable of adjusting, capable of being among the unvanquished, worthy of sharing the globe with its power. We are in the Valley because those that have gone before us survived such times. They've been mirrored in books and movies because of their courage an fortuity.
They couldn't have done that without the wind.
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