Coming Home

The kitchen light shining warmly through the window looks pretty good on a night like tonight. Snow off and on, with 70 mile per hour winds forecast for three days, I’m coming back to the house from the barn, having fed a bottle-calf her warm bedtime milk. 70 miles per hour in the forecast means 80 – 90 mph here; a neighbor said it had been up to 85mph. It’s about 50 – 60 mph now, and the only reason I went out in it was to feed the calf and search for the dozenth time today for a wayward “tween” tortoiseshell kitten.

Last night’s feeding was during a lull in the wind. It was quiet and still for a short while. What was remarkable was the profusion of motes in the air – dust, dried grass, I don’t know what it was. Just lots of it, everywhere, shining in the beam of my headlamp. Normally when I’m out doing the night chores, only the scuffling of the cattle in the barnyard works dust motes up into the air. This must have been the remnants of the tons of soil, sand, dried grasses, and who-knows-whatall that had been scoured from the earth and whipped aloft in the winds throughout the day. Where had it begun, and how far had it traveled?

Walking houseward from the barn, I thought about times I’d been brought outside to pursue some task I’d rather not have had to face. That I’d rather have stayed inside. Yet once out, there always seemed to be something at which to marvel in these times when those more sane or reserved remained shut in. Often I’d watched night turn to pink dawn from the hilltop, greeted by the quiet tinkling of the Horned Larks out across the field.

Here I was again, pelted with hard kernels of snow, wind-driven and sharp. Yet here was a pretty spot of snow, or an interesting pattern in the way it lay. Naked trees dancing and bowing in the wind. Delicate pink flowers of the Nanking Cherry blooming too early once again. The deep, soft darkness. There’s a primal, untamed beauty, not just in the look of the night, but in the feel of it. As though it’s a living thing, and you’re its beating heart…or maybe the other way ’round. There’s a feeling of awe that something so harsh can draw you in and make you love it. But, too, it’s the way the yellowed light through the kitchen window tames the wildness of the night, and makes it soft in the warmer recesses of your mind.

This place is far from my fantasy of a cabin under tall trees at the edge of a quiet lake. Far from the dawn outing on still waters in a canoe, or fishing for breakfast trout from the wooden dock. What if I retired – someday? Would I find that cabin? Would I stay here? What if I stayed? If the livestock were gone, I’d likely not have to go out on a night like tonight. I’d miss this appreciation of my warm, flannel-lined jeans. I’d miss the admiration for my new knit hat, and that the headlamp kept it on in the wind. I’d miss the untamed wildness of the night like a creature after my own heart. And I’d miss the beckoning whisper of the kitchen light.

Welcome home!