Wind, wind – go away!

The little flying nuisance bugs have arrived at Brantley Lake State Park. They look like very anemic mosquitoes; but thankfully they don’t bite. Yesterday evening I was reading until bedtime. It had finally cooled off and my windows were open. When I was too tired to read any more, I looked up and was surprised and amazed to see the window screens were thick with the little bugs. They couldn’t get through the screens, so they just sat there. I closed the windows and turned off the lights – hoping they would head off to another RV.

Sometime in the middle of last night the (in)famous New Mexico Spring winds started with a fury, making for a restless night. The wind was still howling when I woke up. Maybe it will stop when the sun comes up, I thought. No such luck. And it had turned cold – 48-degrees. I had to laugh: the past few days it was very hot; this morning it is so cold I turned the heater on!

I scrapped my morning plans to walk down to the lake’s edge, and instead read and wrote. The wind stopped about 2, giving me time to walk to the lake.

After a mostly idle day, I was reminded of this poem written by Mary Oliver:

The Summer Day.
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean -
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I have decided to leave here a day earlier than planned, so I’ll drive to Roswell in the morning and then on to Bottomless Lakes in the afternoon.