I am drawn to this windy sunny mix because it reminds me of the ocean. I half expect the ocean’s presence but it is not near. I only speak to ancient Devonian seas and lakes that believe themselves oceans because of where they are. Sometimes the beach has a breezy mildness but often times I have caught it in its off-season irritability- white capped peaks too choppy to follow, sand pelting hide, air chilling skin even as the sun is burning it, debris cartwheeling away defying examination. I prefer wildness to mildness although for a shorter duration. But I enjoy these ghost ocean days. Different scents are brought to the fore and the drone brings a comfortable buzzing. I have an opportunity to engage my oppositional nature. Cutting my path despite the wind’s directionality and taking on its momentum whether situated with or against. I walk faster with a slightly more forward lean, mirroring the tumult, the world bright and moving and breathing around me. Leaning toward the expectation that the landscape will sink to the ocean’s lip around every corner. But alas, no.

I cannot help but connect the wind and sun with my friend. A triumvirate whose interrelatedness only makes sense to me and on this day. She is brilliant and green like summer’s bounty and yet coexisting with cancer’s chill and slap. It is a paradox. An unimaginable and monstrous paradox. Why is it so fucking cold in June? Why is it beautiful and sparkling and blinding but at the same time chaotic and whistling and pinching? What exactly is being accomplished under these conditions? Sometimes I am like the wind on a sunny day.

Having grown up in a cradle of mountains, and been grown among gorges and deep mother lakes, the earth has been kind to me. I have no complaints. My life a series of big views and crevasse. Sometimes presenting themselves in rapid cycle or the product of a long climb, or in clipped glimpses as canopy allows. I regret not one minute in the crevasse- sitting on sun baked stone, counting sedimentary layers with my fingers, knelt in prayer as a stream licks my heels.