Wind Storm

Tornado warnings. High wind advisory. Full-tilt at the museum. Temps in the 60's, but the current high is supposed to collide with a low precisely here. Somehow we get everything done, that theater training kicks in, between janitorial responsibilities and a hard place. I don't know what day it is, lost track of time last week, and struggle for the line. Lose threads and most of them red herrings. Mid-afternoon, scudding dark gray clouds from the south suddenly fill a formerly blue sky. Ominous. We deliver the wine glasses (170, two sizes) for the tasting. I proof the wine-tasting booklet, a pompous piece of writing with several incomprehensible sentences that I alter toward legibility. Finally the first rain hits and it's looking bad. I cash in a comp hour, leave the museum a little after four. Rain hard at the lake, napp flowing over the spillway, Turkey Creek in spate. I pull over to arrange my backpack, a light load, 20 lbs, get out the Gore-tex. The bottom of the driveway is a quagmire, B's truck in his slot and I have to shift into 4-wheel drive to back into mine. There a subtle politic to the slots, a mandate that would be difficult to explain. Seems clear enough. Pelting rain and I hunch against it, slogging up the hill; meet B, coming down the hill, he's closed his windows and secured lose items, heading for a warm bed. I fear for the worst, drenched. I'd set a straight-backed chair near the back door, knowing (now) yesterday morning, I'd need to strip when I got home. Probably the wettest I've ever been getting back to the ridge. Change out my clothes and hang dripping items where they'll do the least harm. Power is out, temps dropping quickly, the weather runs my life, this time of year. Get out the candles and the oil lamp, start a fire in the cookstove, eat a can of cold beans. The wind is howling, a full gale, I can hear branches snapping, but it is darker than the shades of hell and my world is again reduced to a flickering cone of candle light. I'm tired of taking notes so I mostly read, a history of salt, some essays Diana left on the table, and finally, default mode, go to bed. The wind is so loud the house creaks. A large gust, must be over 70 mph, shakes the pottery. There's nothing I can do, the house will either hold together or not, I snuggle under my comforter and drift into bad dreams. Disaster, destruction, at some point I'm strapped to bamboo scaffolding, trying to finish the plastering on a mosque in some wind-swept landscape, and the plaster is blowing off the hawk. I've lost my hearing because of the drone the wind makes in the trees. I'm naked, whipped with sleet and bleeding. I don't feel heroic, I feel stupid. I need to pee, and this is strange, the sequence, not that I need to pee: I know my way around in the dark, know where my foot needs to fall, and I go downstairs, outside, to piss in the face of it, or, rather, downwind. I haven't taken a flashlight because I know where the ground is, and I can tell wherefrom the wind. Finish my business and going back inside, maybe four o'clock in the morning, stamp my feet, step inside, slam the door shut, and the power comes on. My intension was to go to bed, but I had to write you. It was overwhelming, I never got back upstairs. Take whatever advantage. I had thrown away some cookies and crackers in my janitor mode and then remembered the geese, so I went through the garbage and retrieved some, and when I stopped at the lake I made some large birds happy. Least I can do, considering. Several things occur to me, but they're not germane. I don't even like geese. I'd be a tree-hugger but I cut them down and burn them. What I mean is there's no removal, that wind, it's part of it.