A friend of the wind
Cheryl Unruh
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
WE KANSANS are not an every-hair-in-place kind of people.
The carefree, tousled-hair look, well, that’s just part of our charm. It’s always been that way around here; original residents were called People of the South Wind.
And, if you’re really into that windblown look, go to Western Kansas where hair can get even more mussed up. There, the wind never blows itself out.
A friend of mine, Emporia attorney Rand Simmons, was raised by the wind out in Dodge City. He says, “You can enjoy it or you can fight it, but you cannot ignore it. The wind is always a presence.”
Most of us fight the wind. We tend to think it’s against us. It shakes our windows, rattles our doors, attempts to break into our homes.
On days when the anemometer shows gale-force gusts, you have to be alert for adults darting out between parked cars as they chase after papers or run after ball caps. The wind is a thief, a vandal, a miscreant.
Plastic bags are frequent fliers. Autumn leaves end up far from their tree of origin. And empty pop cans bounce helplessly down the street with a tink, tink, tink.
Depending on its mood, wind can spray you with dust or assault you with sand. On days when the fresh air blows through at 60 mph, doors slam shut on you causing you to feel like you’re in a bad sci-fi movie, being chased by the demon wind.
Those are the intimidating days, but it’s not always that bad. Wind speeds of 5-15 mph are more common in this neighborhood.
Then there are the odd days when the air stops completely. A still afternoon gets our attention. Quite honestly, it feels a little freaky to us.
On those calm days, well, that’s just nature pausing to inhale. It’s our shoe-waiting-to-fall; we wait for the next exhalation. Moving air is the undercurrent in our lives — it’s like a low-grade fever we cannot shake.
As someone with a lot of wind experience, Rand Simmons thinks the air in Emporia is unnaturally quiet. He misses the heavy winds he grew up with in Dodge City.
“I have always been a bit like a dog that likes to hang its head out of the window of the car,” Rand said.
He likes his air to be moving. “I don’t know whether I liked living in Southwest Kansas because of that or if the wind was just an additional benefit to me,” he said.
Now see, I have little difficulty aligning myself with Rand’s statement, “…the wind was just an additional benefit to me.” Because, like many of you, I find the wind rather annoying.
But, as we smooth down our snarled hair, let us try to appreciate Rand’s perspective. Maybe the atmosphere is half-full, rather than half-empty. Perhaps the wind is not necessarily an agent of destruction, an angry force of nature.
Streaming in from the south during March, the warm wind does help blow spring our way.
And, thanks to the wind, we get our money’s worth out of flags. In calm states, flags are limp; they hug the pole like a toddler hiding behind her mother’s legs.
But not in Kansas — here our flags are fully unfurled. We get to see the whole rectangle, the Star-Spangled Banner in all of its glory.
Wind offers resistance training, builds muscles. For a good workout, you can walk or run, or ride your bike into the wind. Rand says he feels indomitable when he anchors himself and leans into the unwavering breeze, making his way despite the wind’s best efforts to restrain him.
Wind is not all bad. Day and night, as the earth rotates, air sweeps the surface of Kansas. Those breezes constantly refresh our supply of oxygen and nitrogen. We never breathe stale air.
“The wind blows things clean,” Rand says. “It blows things away — and it brings things to you.”
A comb. If the wind would only bring us each a comb, I think that would be fair.
Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.
under_score (anonymous) says...
Great article. I'm not a huge fan of the wind but is there any better place to live than Kansas? I think not.
March 4, 2009 at 10:40 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
create (anonymous) says...
Wonderful article. I especially liked the sound of the empty cans blowing down the street, tink tink tink. My favorite wind sound is when dried leaves skitter across the patio in the autumn. Chit, chit, chit.
March 4, 2009 at 6:53 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )