Each year in my town, the spider webs let go and the citizens experience the somewhat horrifying tradition of removing spider webs from every outside surface.  Cars, clothing, outside furniture – you get the picture.   We are not quite there yet, but the crazy amount of warm wind we have been having inspired a little writing.  Therefore – to the muse of wind and webs, I dedicate this somewhat random post.  Enjoy.

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My only goal was to get away.  To move somewhere with more culture; somewhere with opportunity – a bigger population and shiny shop windows. Theaters and sidewalks and people that never sleep, I had assumed life would just take off from there.  A jet plane ascending into cotton candy clouds, outlining my name in the steam trail.

Not until I was solidly on that plane did I realize there was no landing gear –  No seat belts, no clearly mapped out trajectory; only endless clouds and the need to avoid the flocks of geese who might take the whole crazy mission down.

Reflecting now, I think I’ve been trying in one way or another to turn this plane around for years.  Not the time or age, but perhaps place and culture. Because – when I close my eyes I expect to hear the deafening roar of crickets accompanied by the occasional bullfrog.  I expect to hear the wind and let my mind drift casually along with it’s steady swish.  To dream under the stars.

Instead I battle the pollen filled, hot breeze which blows so incessantly that it drowns out all sense.  Santa-Ana-ish, anything-could-happen, and it seems to as the days get longer and patience feels strained.  Everything but grace splutters and spits from ever passenger.

A spider web of sanity built structurally strong is jostled and jumbled into a mess of knots – tossed so constantly that I give up and just hold on for the ride.

Ears ringing, I close my eyes and instead of crickets, the metallic hum of the neighbor’s air conditioning overwhelms my ears – punctuated only by the high clip of the dogs down the street.

However, in moments of practiced peace, when I close my eyes I still imagine I see those stars and the mountains silhouetted.  Practice peace hard enough and the smell of dusty earth with a hint of spring water seems to play around my nostrils, reminding me that the pollen filled, anything-could-happen-and-does wind, might be the same that will pass through the mountains in my memory.

Lord, give me the strength to have patience.  To forgive the winds of crazy – literal and metaphorical – and to be grateful for each cloudy opportunity.  After all, that wind may be the only thing filling the space beneath this jet plane’s wings.

At least I’ve got a front row seat; and for sure the world is round.

Thank God for good company in this journey.

Goodnight and Amen.