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.