Gulls In The Wind

 Day 10, Take 2 

September 23, 2022

Gray was all I saw. Gray, gray and more gray. It bothered me for a minute then I stopped it. We need this rain, without it the magic of Haida Gwaii will be lost. 

I knew I was right. The desert type landscape of the BC interior was spreading. In the 3 years since I had last driven the province I noticed a dramatic change in the “dry line”.

There is a line where the world stops being green and becomes brown as you drive from the North into the South. I call this the dry line, and it has moved almost at least one whole town further North. Heat, a silent and slow killer, steadily marching its way up the planet. 

The rain drizzled on and off all day. Gray, gray, gray. Wet, wet, wet. 

I went outside for a walk on my afternoon break and stopped to admire the oddity of the Sitka spruce trees. I found myself quite taken with them upon returning to the island after our road trip. Their awkward asymmetrical branches reaching to the horizon on all sides with lots of space for the wind and weather to blow through. Their tall fluffy awkwardness really pleases my eye. 

Thinking about how much I have been admiring them lately I went out in search of one of these beautiful trees. Then suddenly they all became camera shy and tucked in the puffy awkward branches and hid from me. 

I was sure I was starting at one yesterday in the hospital parking lot. Why wasn’t it there? Had I imagined it? 

A gust of salty wind gusted in face and the trees above swayed. 

Ooooohhhhhh it’s windy!!! That’s where they went. Of course I thought they were camera shy. Doesn't everyone live in my make believe world? Not the trees apparently. 

The branches of the Sitka were no longer awkward and outstretched. It was as if they had firmed up and tucked them in. I watched the trees twist and the wind. Whining and creaking under the pressure of it’s force. 

I have always been a fan of the wind. It’s raw awesome power can be so gently tamed in the form of a zephyr or it can bring the power of the heavens to door steps of the earth, crashing through merger human structure with the force of a hurricane. 

The seagulls were all coming out. In great numbers they soared above the creaking trees. Celebrating the coming of the season. That’s when I realized the experiences of the wind for each of us. To me it was refreshing and exciting, to some humans maybe just another weather to complain about in polite conversation. To the trees and the plants it was a workout and a test of strength. Bending and twisting the fibers of their being, either forcing them to grow stronger or breaking them instead. To the seagulls it turned the expansive sky into a fairground allowing them to twist and dive as they ride on the mighty currents of its awesome power. 

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