Gone With the Wind

Footprints

Once I lived in a house in a tiny town with a borrowed police force and only a-now-defunct-art-center and a town hall at its center. The property backed up against hundreds of acres of conservation land. There was a spring-fed pond just in the tree line. Its waters were ice cold even in the dead of summer. It had centuries of silt from decomposing fallen leaves built into feet of gooey sludge on its bottom. One summer, my brother-in-law, Adam, and I scooped out the sludge and wet heavy leaves that hadn’t yet finished their decomposing. The pond was surprisingly deep. We didn’t dredge the whole thing, just cleaned out a little circle, large enough to dive under for a quick gooey-less cool down on hot summer days. It was a polar plunge regardless of the season, and you didn’t want to linger in that cold water long- just jump in and then warm ourselves on the little grass meadow at its banks. It has been many, many years since I lived in that house. I suppose all those years of fallen leaves have erased our work, have back-filled our cleaned out pool. Any trace of our work and enjoyment there, gone with the actual autumn winds. I think about leaving no trace, all the time. I am comforted when Megan and I come back to a place we had been a year ago, and no trace of us remains as a scar upon the land.

We’ve moved north and west from our place down in the warm borderlands. I’ve hiked out my two-track and dirt road grids. I have hiked cross country from one squiggle on my map to the next. The colorful lines on my hiking map in my Gaia app are like if you followed children’s footprints in the snow. Seeing where children go in the snow is one of my favorite things. They show curiosity, learning, wonder, no straight lines from car to door or woodshed to house. When I track their wanderings I wonder what drew them to walk over this way, what did they see? What did they learn? What curiosity did they satisfy? It reminds me that, one time, I was not so regimented. I was curious, too. Often times, from camp, I walk the same path, at first. My singular boot prints going, going, making curious curves to look at a rock or a tree or to follow hardly noticeable tire tracks as they go wandering off into the distance. When I venture cross country, my boot prints follow the path of least resistance, around this prickly bush, far along the bank of this wash until I find a place to enter it and then down the wash until it chokes with vegetation, sometimes back tracking so I can find a route up the other side. My tracks always self correcting so I can angle to meet a road I’ve already walked, so I can make my big circle back to Megan and Henry. I see small lizards who run so fast to get away from me, running on tiptoes, it would seem. I hear Gilded Flickers sounding angry, admonishing me for coming near their perch in the Palo Verde trees. Sagebrush Sparrows in flocks of twenty or more glide from bush to bush in waves in front of me. I apologize to them for upsetting their day. A pair of Ravens sing their love songs and laugh as they watch me, perched on the towers of the power lines that run like marching giants straight across the land, disappearing up over the mountains in the east, and fading into the flat horizon the west. I find a fox den and see their small cat-like prints going to and fro. I see javelina prints meandering here and there. I wonder how long it takes for the wind to cover up all my footprints in the sand. I wonder how long until I am gone with the wind.

We had set up the canvas tent on our second day here. Only one lag bolt had any resistance going into the ground. Megan and I joked that the whole integrity of the tent rested on that one bolt in the ground. We had been spoiled thus far with virtually no windy days. That night the wind came in. We moved out of the tent and opted for sleeping downstairs on Henry’s front seats. I moved Henry to the wind side of the tent to try and give it some shelter. These were the same windy days that blew the Santa Ana winds down into Los Angeles, spreading the horrific fires. Henry rocked and rolled all night. I didn’t sleep at all. I watched the tent, through the window. It stood, lashed and battered by those terrible winds. Its one lag bolt holding it down, most of the other bolts vibrated themselves loose, but the tension poles held and nothing ripped apart. I did brave the winds at about two in the morning. I took down first one upright pole and laid it as gently as possible over our stuff that was still in the tent. The canvas on the side that was still upright acted as a sail, but did not blow away. I wrestled that side down as well and with great effort got it to lay down on top of our stuff. I hoped nothing would break. I felt a little bit like Jacob wrestling God out there in the roaring wind, alone with my mission, the stars, blowing sand, and my strong arms, legs, and back. I had worn my pajama shorts to bed that night. I had sockless feet in my work boots. The sand exfoliated my calves. When I opened the door to get back in Henry, I had to fight the wind to close it behind me. I looked over at my love, sleeping like a limber cat on the passenger seat, unbothered, faithful, fearless, and I loved her as fiercely as I ever have, but still had a little envy for her ability to sleep in any uncomfortable position and at peace. The wind lessened slightly the next day. Now I had to get that tent back upright because our clothes were in there and other important things. I wrestled again with the wind. And braved my anxiety of being in that thing under those poles. The poles weigh 40 lbs. They’d brain you for sure if they fell on your head. We managed to get all our stuff out of there. We somehow got canvas rolled back up and in its bag, the ground tarp as well. We moved into the Roofnest and we’ve slept up there since.

You might recall that we’d broken one of the zippers on the door of the Roofnest last time we were in Arizona. It’s just canvas flap with a two zippers down the sides and metal dowel across the bottom to weigh it down. The one side zipper still worked and I had made a hole in the other side, on the bottom and just tied it shut to one of the awning poles. Now that I had my Speedy Stitcher Awl for making the stove jack in the canvas tent, I thought I could create a better fix than the rope tying. We bought some heavy duty Velcro. I sewed a few strips on the broken zipper side and the bottom. My sewing isn’t, yet, anything I would want to show off, but my stitches are strong and serviceable. I was feeling quite satisfied with my ingenuity. It was an awkward position to be sewing in, balanced up there on the ladder. Of course, the next day, the zipper on the other side of the door decided to give up as well. I wasn’t even mad, because that thing had been doing the work of two for about a year now. I got back to sewing. Sand is not kind to zippers. But I am woman who can find a solution, and if practicality is more important than looks, you’d be satisfied with my solutions, too.

We’ve gone on driving adventures to rock hounding places and just to see where these dirt roads finally go. We’ve been awe stuck by the rising Hunger Moon and the ability to see Jupiter, Venus, Saturn, and Mars making a line across the night sky. We’ve huddled together, as the cold comes calling while we watch the sun set fire to the sky as it sets behind jagged mountains, sending alpinglow to the mountains behind us.

We had taken the rainfly off the roofnest. It makes a racket on windy nights. One afternoon, we watched the clouds rolling. The sunset was the best yet. We could see rain coming from clouds and not touching the ground. I asked Megan if we dared to chance that we’d stay dry in the one percent chance of rain. She said yes, and then big, fat, cold rain drops started to fall. I dove into the back of Henry and pulled the rainfly out of a bin. The rainfly zips onto the tent, around the hardtop. You need to pop out of the sky-window. We raced the rain to get it zipped back on and its poles set up. Only a few rain drops got into the tent. And I think by time we had it on the rain had passed. We are going find somewhere new to explore tomorrow, somewhere new for my boot prints to show whoever comes after me a sense of wonder, of curiosity, of learning...or maybe they’ll be erased by the wind before anyone knows where I’ve been.

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