I awoke today to strong winds in the back yard. They didn’t let up all day. As I made my way to the court, it looked to me as though it were about to rain, or a fog had set in. Certainly it was cold enough for a fog. But it wasn’t fog, it was sand from the desert floor thrown across the California countryside by a vicious, angry, frigid wind. As I waited for my cases to be called I could look out the windows to the dry creek bed, and saw curls of white-brown sand thrown fifty feet into the air, and the mountains — less than ten miles away — obscured to invisibility in the violent drabness of the sandy air. When I left, I had to walk through the dirty gusts, which I was told later were, on occasion, in excess of the posted speed limit for most of our streets. The grit shot instantly into my mouth and nose, and forced me to shut my eyes, walking nearly blind through the parking lot. Even in the safety of my car, the cruel wind pushed on me again and again, varying my vehicle’s vector to veer as I made my way to the office.
Nature is more powerful than you.
