I Can Sleep When the Wind Blows

I remember reading a tale when I was a kid of a young man who wanted the job as a hired hand on a large farm. The farmer asked him why he should hire him, and the young man replied cryptically, "I can sleep when the wind blows." Puzzled by the response, but impressed with the youth in general, the farmer hired him as his farmhand and was not disappointed in his daily efforts. The point of this cautionary tale played out a few weeks later when a storm blew in during the night. The farmer rushed to waken the farmhand to help him secure doors and animals and equipment. Again the young man said, "I can sleep when the wind blows," and returned to his sleep. The exasperated farmer moved out into the storm to find that the tasks he had wakened to do were already done. In the course of finishing up his day's work, the farmhand routinely fastened gates and secured doors and took care of animals and equipment, as if a storm might blow in. Thus he could indeed sleep peacefully every night, knowing that all would be well until morning.


I was pretty impressed with this story when I was 13 and 14, because it never occurred to me to work that hard "just in case." Of course, I had never lived where wind blew on a regular basis. Now I do. The wind blows in Reno as a matter of course in November, December, March, April and May. It blows a lot every other month too. When people move here we caution them about living in certain areas because of the amount of wind there. I now close windows, doors and gates as a matter of course. We always secure garbage cans, lawn furniture, even trampolines. Still, I cannot sleep when the wind blows.


First of all, when the wind blows, things make noise: windows rattle, doors creak, roof vents whine, bathroom fans clank and toilets bubble backwards. In spite of all that, I will be tired enough eventually that sleep will come, but not for long. Just the wind itself, the movement and energy, stirs up my brain and sends it into overdrive. Simply put, my mind will not turn off in the wind. Eventually my eyes will pop open, and I will be wide awake again listening to the sounds of the wind, aware of my mind looping around on the same thoughts I fell asleep to. I write this on a typical March day as the wind swooshes outside and batters against my house, as it did all night last night - as it has every March for the last nineteen years that I have lived in Reno. Gratefully and atypically, I am well rested.


Now I will be the first one to support the statement that the temple is a place of inspiration and learning, but some of the things I learn there seem less lofty and come from very ordinary sources. That doesn't make them less valuable, and in fact shows me that while the Lord loves sacred truths, he is pragmatic as well. Last Wednesday evening as we finished our shift at the temple, I stood in the lobby with the last patron to leave. We chatted as we waited for our husbands. An obvious topic was the wind. The chain on the flagpole banged loudly and the flag snapped so that we could hear both from where we stood over the moaning and whining of the wind around the building. I complained that it would be another sleepless night for me and asked her if she could sleep through the wind. She said she could, and I thought that was that. Then she added, "I use earplugs."


Shazam! This statement hit me with all the force of three years of seminary sleep deprivation enhanced by frequent windstorms. Earplugs! I could use earplugs and sleep. Tonight. I left the temple, dropped Brian off at his car and pulled into the Smith's parking lot at 10pm. I needed milk and earplugs. At 11 pm with my face scrubbed and my most comfortable jammies on, I opened the package of earplugs, read the directions and inserted two soft, purple foam cones into my ears. I could hear Brian as he mumbled, "Love you, goodnight." I could hear my cell phone as I plugged it in to charge. I could not hear the wind swooshing 'round my house as I settled my head on my pillow and pulled the covers around my neck. Instead the night swooshed by and the next thing I heard (barely) was my alarm beeping out 5:20am.


I can sleep when the wind blows.

I Didn’t Kick the Dog and Other Small Victories from Irrational Moments

Exactly twenty three hours after leaving my gym class full of energy and with a task list long enough to use it all, I returned and a friend queried, "How did your day go yesterday? Did you get everything done?" The best accounting I could give of the previous day was, "No, but I didn't cuss or kick the dog." Caught of guard, she quickly recovered and offered, "Well, now we know you are human, and some days are just like that." I AM human. And some days ARE like that. However, looking back I am amazed at the sheer irrationality I brought to the experience.

Just what task could produce this kind of ire? In a nutshell, I needed to complete our guest list and print the labels for my son's wedding announcements. Two or three hours max…check it off…move on to the next task. After all, I had already spent the better part of two days updating family addresses and completing the mail/merge that converted my contact database into labels. Now all that was needed was a few more addresses, double-check the headcount, and print. Of course, I needed to buy more labels first, so when I left my gym class I made a quick stop at Office Depot where a friendly worker greeted me at the door and efficiently pointed me to the label shelves. There I found the clear labels I wanted for the job in packages of 10, 25 and100 sheets with their corresponding escalation of price. Feeling like I would be better off safe than sorry, I grabbed the package of 25 sheets with its prohibitive price of $35 and headed home. I took the time to shower, apply makeup and do my hair, in an effort to please my husband, Brian, when he walked through the door. (At this point, I was also planning a warm meal with pleasant conversation.) I sat down at my computer and used Facebook to send out a few last requests for addresses from my son's high school buddies and coaches. While there I wasted a few minutes and read some postings and requested a few friends since I am fairly new at Facebook.

An hour later I am ready to start printing. I know that my printer doesn't like anything besides plain white paper, so I begin feeding it one sheet at a time. I only need 8 sheets of labels, so how long can it take? About every third or fourth effort the printer decides it likes the label sheet, recognizes it as a printable surface and produces a beautiful set of 30 labels which immediately begin to bleed and run into illegible blobs of characters. I try new fonts: Calibri and Ariel. I try descending sizes: 12, then 10. Nothing helps. Two hours into it I realize that I will have to go back to Office Depot and complain about this product and insist that they exchange it for one that will produce legible and beautiful labels (these are for wedding announcements after all!). I walk into the store with my 15 sheets of illegible addresses and the original package and I am met by FOUR helpful workers – none of them the girl from my first visit. I show them the evidence and tell my tale of woe. They all nod mournfully and agree – laser. I bought laser sheets for my ink jet printer. I bought $35 worth of laser sheets for an ink jet printer, AND I wasted two hours of my time. Frustration mounts as I return to the label shelves and find clear labels for ink jet printers, 25 sheets for $25. I call my husband as I drive home (on a hands-free device, of course) and vent. He listens, sympathizes, and wishes me well. Well of course everything will be fine I think, now that I know what the problem was.

What I don't know is that while I was away, my printer morphed from an inanimate object with a few quirks into a machine with Machiavellian aspirations. As I feed it sheets clearly marked for ink jet printers, it rejects them time and again while mangling their leading edges and sending me messages like, "Re-insert the sheet with the printing surface face down." I had. Or, "Paper size mis-match." I don't think so. Fuming, I open the paper tray, re-stack a few plain white sheets, set my label sheet carefully on top, close the tray, hit OK and watch in dismay as it spits the sheet back at me with another nasty message. Then in an act of supreme contempt, the printer DOES print a sheet (whew!), but delivers a product where addresses are not aligned with labels. An hour passes and I have one sheet of legible, beautiful labels - just enough to keep me in the fight, since I know it can be done. I take a break to fold laundry (yep, I did get another task done that day!) and return to my computer. Open, stack, place, insert, close, Print, followed by sounds of gears meshing and feeds spinning and paper ripping. Paper ripping?!! Does this machine have no scruples? How can it sink so low? At 5 pm I have exactly 1 sheet of labels and a machine as jammed up as my day. I slam my fist onto my desk and begin sobbing. What of my great plans for the day? Labels, lesson plans for the week, dinner, ironing, and a birthday gift off to my son-in-law in Seattle. Like my plans, sheets of labels are shredded inside my printer. Labels adhere to rollers and feed guides. A crumbled ball of backing stalls the ink carriage. It's a disaster. Hot tears wash away my makeup and my fingers pull at my hair as I holler at the printer, "You stupid machine! You stupid, stupid, STUPID machine!"

Reason had long ago lost all sway with me. Reason would suggest emailing the labels to a friend with a reliable printer, ignoring artificial deadlines, moving on to another task and returning to this one refreshed. I instead angrily dig in my heels, determined to beat this machine and have my labels before the day ends. When Brian comes home I am a mess and his suggestions of help ("Email them to my office and I will print them in the morning") are batted away by my suggestion that he retreat to the backyard to work on the garden boxes. The dog gladly goes with him. Doggedly, I return to my efforts to produce legible, beautiful labels for my son's wedding announcements: stack, set, insert, close, Print. Out comes sheet number two of labels that meet the quality control check. Gradually the printer gives in to the sheer force of my irrational will, and at 7 pm I watch triumphantly as the last sheet of perfect labels rolls out of my printer.

I clean up my desk and walk to the back door where I tell my husband, as he works in the chilly dusk, that it is now safe to come inside. I move to the kitchen and assemble a salad, heat two bowls of boxed soup and set two places. By 8:30 we are warm and fed and calm. My lesson for seminary in the morning is written. I feel a peace that three hours earlier I was sure had departed for a good, long time. Even as I write this, I am amazed at how badly the day went and how completely frustrated I allowed myself to get. Am I crazy? I don't think so, but I am human. Did I keep my dignity? No, but I didn't cuss and I didn't kick the dog. And some days, that's the best I can do.

My Dad, the Cheerleader

It is good to pause and think about my dad today. I can think of a few occasions when we, as his children, specifically took the opportunity to address Dad's strengths and his example - at a retirement 'toast and roast,' his 80th birthday, his funeral. I know that we've spoken of his faithfulness, steadiness, work ethic, service, capacity for missionary work and inclusiveness to name just a few. In my mind, since his death the list of Dad's characteristics was final and absolute, and anything I would address might bring nods of agreement and invoke memories of past discussions of this very thing, but would border on redundancy. However, in the last couple of years I have remembered on multiple occasions something about him that I hadn't recalled previously. No doubt this trait comes to mind now because I spend a good deal of time talking on the phone with my adult children, and trying to think what I can do to ease their load and to encourage them in their righteous desires. So today, on his 90th birthday, I remember my dad, the cheerleader.

This takes me back to 27, mother of 4 little children, wife of a busy CPA and young bishop, stake Primary president, a tight budget. Somewhere along the line we had crossed over, my father and I, my life and his life. He worried that he had been put out to pasture and was no longer useful. I worried that I wouldn't have the strength to do all that was required of me. His vision and wisdom and experience became my back bone and rudder. Each phone call and visit would end with expressions of love and appreciation: 'you can do this, ' 'we are so proud of you,' 'you're such a good woman.' He lent strength where mine had run out. No longer a child needing discipline or a worrisome young adult making difficult decisions, now I was a protegee and a peer of sorts. Released from the strict role of father-raising-a-child, Dad used his freedom to build and to give what I needed most: belief in my ability to do what I must and the vision to see a way to do it. And he was right; I could.

As my life continues to unfold and roll around on ground he trod before me, may his example also continue to unfurl in front of me, showing me how to do it and telling me that I can.

Happy birthday, Dad. I love you. I miss you.