I found myself drawn to the countryside today. Windmills fascinate me. I yearned to find a long wide shot, perhaps a little video. I drove east on Highway 12, over the Rio Vista bridge and continuing outside of town. I had an hour to squander before I needed to be anywhere.
A wholesale lack of daily time commitments sends my disposition spinning. I don’t like free time. Dreams, ghosts, and wicked little doubts besiege me if I do not have enough to fill my waking moments. I push them away. Stretching for joy appeals to me but not on the roller coaster of chaos. So I washed my hair, threw clothes on my aching bones and jumped into the RAV.
A sign for Bird’s Landing drew me off the straightway, a wide left turn and into the cleft between slopes. Eyes darting back and forth, watching for a chance to stop, I moved beyond barns, power lines, and empty steel buildings crouched on the hillside. I never found the perfect spot; and the road ended at the Montezuma Fire Station, with a sign for Fairfield to the right and Collinsville to the left. Beyond the sign for Collinsville another one cautioned, No outlet.
I turned left. I’ve been to Fairfield.
Indeed, the highway ended at a scraggly field beyond which I could see the river. I considered my options. A small road led into the field of windmills but the map showed that it, too, had no outlet. I turned around and headed the way I had come. The windmills rose above me, some still, some moving just barely in the crisp quiet of the afternoon.
As I made my way back to Highway 12, I came upon a flock of sheep, ewes and lambs, pushing against each other on the roadway. Two black dogs nipped at their heels. A man in an ATV led them; one hovered at the rear. I pulled over and watched them pass, holding my cell phone, holding my breath, nodding to their minders as the mass of bleating babies moved beyond my car.
A few nagging annoyances pushed at my good mood today. The ghosts; the dreams; the images of windmills which might be giants. But I have no complaints.
“Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love.
It will not lead you astray.”
— Rumi