Flyover People: Into the wind
Cheryl Unruh
Originally published 03:23 p.m., March 4, 2008
Updated 03:23 p.m., March 4, 2008
Out for track practice one spring day, we junior high girls watched our coach, waiting for him to spit.
It was Marilyn who had first noticed.
“He spits into the wind,” she said. “Watch.”
And sure enough, a few minutes later, a wad of spit left the coach’s mouth. It went forth into the warm air, arced in the breeze and returned like a boomerang, landing near the lapel of his mustard-colored sport jacket.
He looked down, grimaced, then brushed his jacket with a handkerchief.
Standing near the shot put circle, our huddle of girls laughed and one of us, someone who could sing (meaning, not me), sang, though not loud enough for the coach to hear, Jim Croce’s “You Don’t Mess Around With Jim,” which includes the line, “You don’t spit into the wind.”
That Kansas wind will get you, one way or another — if not with poorly-directed spit, it will get you by spraying dust into your eyes or by tangling your hair.
We learned about the dynamics of wind out there on the dusty track in Central Kansas.
The urgent gusts at our backs gave us enhanced athletic powers. A girl could fly into the long jump pit inches beyond previous attempts, sail over low hurdles as if lifted by angels, and run like the wind in the 50-yard-dash.
Wind was not all good, obviously. If you had to run a sprint with a 43-mph blast against your chest, you might as well be running in place.
And, in your very first track meet, at your very first attempt, as you take your little jog toward the high jump bar, realizing that the crossbar is nearly as high as you are tall, and being one of the shortest girls on the team, you curse the coach for putting you in this event, and just as you’re about to make the leap, the wind blows the crossbar off the stand. And you have to start all over on your approach toward certain humiliation.
Kansas is the land of wind. In autumn, strong winds yank reluctant leaves off trees and winter’s mighty gusts are one of the most horrid things about Kansas, which is why wind chill is kept hush-hush and is certainly never mentioned in state promotional brochures.
Although the Kansas wind can blow in any season, and believe me it does, March is the month we tend to associate with the wind. March has lion written all over it.
Spring is the time of turbulence. It’s the season when warm and cold fronts come to the plains to do battle. Wind always has someplace to go. It’s a wanderer, a nomad, restless as all get-out.
On those spring days with the 56-mph gales, we count on the law of gravity to hold us onto the planet.
Yet we are people strengthened by that relentless wind. Wind can sway us, but we learn to stand strong like yogis in tadasana (mountain) pose.
(Ever wonder why Kansas has no mountains? The wind blew them away.)
Nevertheless, we shift our body weight lower, our feet learn to grip the earth and we just let the wind scream through us. It pours through our skin, our bones, our livers, our hearts.
And we are washed by this wind. Cleansed. When standing as firm as a mountain and the wind rages through you, you can surrender your misery, your burdens, your sins. It’s a glorious thing, actually.
But that only works with the really fierce winds.
Much of the time, we have a white-noise kind of a wind, 10–20 mph, the kind of moving air that makes small branches bounce, tall grasses bend and it’s just enough of a breeze to annoy us.
The wind never tires. Its meter never runs out. It’s a dog that won’t quit barking.
Some days the wind simply exhausts us and we want to call for an intervention. But who would we call?
Who’ll stop the wind?
“Flyover People” is online at www.flyoverpeople.net. • Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.
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