With a change in employment that requires more time and energy, The Wanderer has been stationary, and I have felt a bit like a bug on a specimen pin. It has been an exercise in patience, letting things come to me rather than going out searching; but they have come.
The farm that is the view from my tiny house is in the middle of some sort of change – the end result, I don’t yet know. The dozen and a half cows were rounded up a week ago, the chicken coop is empty and the two donkeys are gone, along with the house’s inhabitants. There was a barn sale one Friday when I was at work, and there is little left of the building materials and lawn mowers and fence pieces that seemed to procreate in the yard. The flags and white pickup trucks are gone. The Tiny House Community rumor is that the renters have left, much of the land has been leased for a more substantial herd of cows and perhaps staff will move into the house. Of course, the fear is that the land, quite valuable now, will be sold to a developer sooner rather than later. Personally, I vote for horses and cowboys! Meanwhile, it’s been quiet to the point of eerie.
Contributing to the subdued mood has been the odd weather. It has been unusually warm – even hot. September saw several days of triple digits; and until this past Wednesday most of October has been in the mid 90’s. There weren’t many records broken, so I will assume that this is just Texas on some spectrum of Texas-ness. The wind has been non-existent. There has been no rain. It’s felt as if the whole world is waiting for something.
Wednesday night a front came through. For a long while, the dog sat in the grass, his long muzzle reaching up to the sky with nostrils flaring and gums flapping, welcoming the new scents; while I watched the stars come out and then disappear behind clouds. Later the strong winds and rain came, a great relief though the front door blew open a crack (the house has sunk a little, so the door needs to be rehung) and the cat got out. I didn’t realize until close to dawn and was worried he would have run away in the excitement of the cool weather, but I found him on the porch railing, intently surveilling the freshened landscape.
Thursday was cool and crisp and felt like fall; which put a bounce in my step and inspired me to vote early. The line was short, it being Halloween, and everyone was friendly if a bit tense. Perhaps the atmosphere of this strange, hot, still fall has been in part because of the looming changes in government that most people have at least one eye on. Whichever way the chips fall, and whether it takes a short or long time to sort out, leadership will be changing. We may or may not know by the time this is published.
But change will come to us, even if we stay still.
