Nights where the wind is howling, and you are waiting on someone you love, who is travelling... You know the roads are treacherous, vision is compromised, and you are powerless. The. Worst. Nights. Ever.
December of 1990, I was waiting on my parents. They were on the road from Kansas... Basically coming to pick me up at my grandparents house in Michigan. I was an adult... 18 years old for about six weeks... I had gone out into the big bad world, and subsequently had my ass solidly handed back to me.
Smoking like a chimney, as I watched the snow fall and listened to the whine of the wind through the giant pines, accompanied by the solemn voice of Mr. Presley crooning "I'll Be Home For Christmas" from the ever present kitchen radio. Sitting in the dark... and watching every set of headlights coming down E Drive... Hoping they turned into the driveway.
I remember the relentless winds of Kansas winters. Going out to the wood pile to get an "all-nighter" for the stove. Cracking open the door, hearing a scream of wind as the seal was broken. It was like a front in a battle... a horde of invaders, making all the noise they could to intimidate the defenders, warm in their keep.
The Kansas winds of winter were equally brutal in that there was no escape... If you were outside, and it was windy, you were cold. End of story. You could put on as many layers as you wanted... But that wind would sneak... penetrate... creep in... and hit that one spot on the top of your butt crack that reduces your bladder to that of a 10 year old girl's on a road trip.
I was in a "treehouse" above a shed in Andover, Kansas. My "girlfriend" on my lap - for purely warmth sharing purposes (Oh, the lies we told!). I was a Sophomore so... Started feeling funny... And oh so good! ("No, I am just happy to see you... Nothing in my pockets!") I remember holding her, and her telling me that she liked my hands because they made her feel secure and safe. I floated home that night...
In the military, I spent winter the winter of 1995/96 in Turkey and while it never got super cold, the winds would sweep down from the Taurus Mountains. I remember the tents being rated for 45 mph winds. I also remember the night we got word that a storm was coming through with gusts up to 60 mph. Not a lot of sleeping going on as the tent "breathed"... And try sleeping with stakes and a mallet... A couple of tents in Tent City (aptly named!) were toppled, we were lucky though. However, I will never, ever forget that sound.
Again, I have no clue as to why just the SOUND of a 15 mph wind, in December, makes you shiver. The same breeze is not even audible in the summer. Also, a 15 mph wind in the summer is almost a blessing! Winter has "wind chill", summer has "heat index"... Both equally shitty, like oral sex from a rabid honey badger. Having never received oral administrations from Mellivora capensis, suffering from a virus in the Mononegaviralis order... I am just guessing it would be pretty no bueno.
The song that will always and forever take me to those nights where you feel you will never get warm again is "The Call of Cthulu" (refer to Title! Told ya!) by Metallica... just the opening 15 seconds alone...
It's an instrumental Mom, so... You don't have to worry about not understanding the words.
Like I mentioned earlier, cold and windy nights always seem darker. I don't think there has ever been a "happy" story that started with "It was cold, dark, and the wind was blowing..."
Winter is the season of dying. The wind in the winter is the exhalation of that death... The could be the reason that the wind sounds different. The last struggling gasp before the calm and rebirth of spring. The loudest the breezes of other seasons ever got was in Type O Negative's cover of Seals and Croft's "Summer Breeze".
On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I remember the winter nights of absolute stillness. Where it seems like a spell has been cast and the first sound is shockingly loud... and pulls you out of the trance.
One nights in Michigan, where I was smoking outside, marvelling at the serenity of the night and suddenly I was aware of a deer plodding through the grandparents yard... Both of us startling each other...
The night in Texas, three years back when a freeze came through, knocking out power. I remember waking up to what I thought were gunshots. Confused and trying to listen for the offending racket... I was amazed at how eerily quiet it was... then KRRRRRKRACK! as a tree limb gave way to the weight of the ice.
This post was brought on by the aforementioned conversation with Moms, and the fact that the first true cold snap hit this Friday. Had to turn on the heater today.
The first-time-heater-comes-on-burnt-smell is for another blog.
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Just reminiscing about winters past, makes me happy... It also brings a twinge of sadness. I scoped the Google maps, Earth view for my grandparents place. It is gone. Wiped from existence. It lives on in my minds eye... and in my heart. While I remember, and cherish, hundreds of memories, I lament those I can't recall...
What I would not give for one more night, windy or not.
Caught beneath the landslide,
d
This blog brought to you by Simon & Garfunkel, J. Geils Band, Extreme, Faith No More, Pantera, Huey Lewis & The News, Billy Joel, George Clinton and The Parliament Funkedelic, David Lee Roth, Crystal Method, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Alice In Chains, Metallica, and Oasis.
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