to find the water to quench the fire that burns in her spinal cord...

There is something so incredible about the smell of earth after rain. I love it. I wish I could be bottled, but I think that would negate some of its beauty and intoxicating quality. I would be content to feel (yes, feel because it has a very tangible sensation, emotion, feeling attached to it) to feel the smell of earth after rain for the rest of my life.

Lately this week at work I've been seeing a lot of storm fronts moving in and out. Not much rain, but the beautiful dark clouds and angry winds. I take that back. I love wind and I have experienced many different kinds, and I don't think these winds have been angry. At home, we have a wind called the Chinook. It comes over the Rockies in the middle of winter with incredible warmth and melts all the snow on the ground in only a few hours. I love this wind I love that it is named I love its personality. When I was a kid, my parents, especially my dad, used to call me chinook. I think maybe that is why I love the wind so much. Growing up with almost incessant wind, I know a lot of people who not only detest, but HATE wind. But not me. And lately, when I've seen these storms moving around Edmonton, I always feel it in the wind first. Picture it in your head, like a cheesy Pocahontas moment...I'll be standing behind the mower and all of a sudden, I feel the wind coming. Like it pulls at my soul before I feel it on my face.
Maybe its because I feel so connected to wind that I want to name it, to give myself a way to interact with it. And maybe its because I've been watching too much Pirates lately, but when I think of this wind, when I feel it, when it hits me...the only word I can think of to describe it, is Calypso. I realize that using a sea goddess' name to describe a wind in land-bound edmonton is pretty ridiculous, but I can't help it. Like the Chinook, it is compelling and pulling me into itself, but this one is more seductive and whispering, more dark and mysterious. The Chinook whips open your soul and becomes part of you, but Calypso draws you down into itself until you become part of it. And like Odysseus, I cannot resist.

So when I am mowing and a sense the Calypso coming, I switch my iPod to play "Redford (For Yia-Yia & Pappou)" by Sufjan and I wait and I watch.