Today The Wind Got Personal

You ever have one of those days, where the wind feels like it’s got a grudge against you? Like maybe it was a cousin of yours in another life that you wronged somehow—stole his girlfriend or dented his Ford Fairlane—and now he’s come back as a Western Nevada gust bent on payback. That’s the kind of wind we had today.

I had every intention of heading down to Yerington this morning. Figured I’d take the camera, maybe catch the early light playing hopscotch across the tin roofs and hay fields. But the clouds rolled in like drunks at closing time, and the thunder—well, let’s just say it had a kind of ‘old man with opinions’ quality. Loud. Unapologetic. Full of static.

Still, I was feeling productive last night, and for reasons known only to me and possibly the ghost of my grandfather, I decided to go out after work and pick up all the deadfall in the yard. I should’ve known better. When the desert wants to hand you a test, it doesn’t call ahead.

So this morning I watched from the living room window as everything I gathered and stacked neatly by the side fence turned into airborne projectiles, tumbling like gymnasts across the property. There went the cottonwood limbs, bits of juniper, and, unless my eyes deceived me, a plastic garden gnome I swear I never bought. I suppose he’s someone else’s problem now.

In moments like that, when the world insists on being unpredictable, I sit still and think about my life. Which, admittedly, I do anyway. Thinking about the past is cheaper than therapy and requires less small talk.

As I inch toward retirement this August, I’ve been doing a lot of inventory. Not just the physical kind, though Lord knows I’ve got enough stuff stacked in my office to open a halfway decent museum dedicated to strange careers. But the mental kind, too. The big questions are: What have I done? What haven’t I? Did any of it matter?

I mean, I’ve been a stuntman, stand-in, sketch artist, cowboy, and paramedic and a firefighter. I rode shotgun on news stories no one remembers and sat in war zones that history hasn’t figured out how to classify. I’ve been told I wasn’t experienced enough to be hired and then told I was too experienced to be affordable. Somewhere in between those two lies the sweet spot where dignity lives, but I’ll be damned if I ever found it.

And now here I sit—surrounded by paintings, photographs, old uniforms, and enough notebooks to build a log cabin if I ever ran out of firewood. Part of me looks around and thinks, What’s it all for? The other part starts mentally pricing a haul-away bin and wonders how far I could throw my past if I tried.

But I don’t throw it away. Not today. Because deep down, I know something I forget too often: that everything I’ve done, all these odd jobs and strange turns, weren’t just filler between paychecks. They were my way of shaking hands with the world.

Even now, in the quiet that follows a thunderstorm and the chaos of a bad wind, I remember that being a witness—being there—matters. Even if nobody claps. Even if the medal never comes. Even if the only thanks is from a dog who liked how you smelled after a brush fire.

So I pour another cup of coffee, listen to the wind rattling around the porch like it owns the place, and wait. Maybe tomorrow’s the day I go to Yerington. Maybe not. Either way, I’ll write it down, because that’s what I do when I can’t do anything else. I turn on the computer, pull up the keyboard, and try to listen through the noise of my mind.

And sometimes I want to ask: can you hear my pain?