Dave's Journal: May 15, 2025

5-15-25

Another windy day. I was out trying to plant tomatoes. Not just a breeze—some real spring gusts—the kind that breaks in and lifts not only your hat but your wallet, as my dad used to say. It took the tarp clear over the house and sent the basil seed packets flying. My neighbor from Salt Lake hates the wind. But I’ve never hated the wind. It blows one’s thoughts around nicely, a natural disruptor. I just stood there for a minute, holding one of the tomato starts in my hand, staring out across the road.

I just stared at the field across the road, the field that is still there. The field that is still green.

For now. The survey flags are in—little orange flames in the tender green that mark where the roads will go. Evening Star Lane, according to the paperwork. I chuckled at the name when I signed off on the CC&Rs. At Lindgren, Watts & Mendenhall, it’s just another file in the cabinet. But this file sits a little differently.

It’s strange. I benefit from all this. Not just indirectly—I mean, it’s my job. The houses go in, the firm grows, the city expands, my retirement account looks solid. And I don’t want to pretend I’m above it. I’m not. Heather and I bought a new Jeep Grand Cherokee last month. Leather seats. Kids love the bluetooth.

Grand Cherokee. Our consumer culture is that nonchalant about a people we replaced by killing them off.

I’m just venting. I looked at that field today and…
I don’t know. Some longing came back.

It’s the wind, I think. This time of year always brings it. As a kid I always got a kite for my birthday in early spring. Simple plastic ones with bright dragon colors. Or one time my brother Teddy made one with a black trash bag and balsa wood. Not pretty, it flew just as well.

I used to run out past the orchard behind our house, into the open fields. Back when St. George was mostly fields with the occasional swather rather than golfer. The alfalfa was just starting to come up, the ruts still muddy in spots from the last late spring storm. I’d run with the kite dragging behind me, yelling at it like it was a dog. “Up, you bastard. Get up!” Sometimes it would lift on those prompts I’d learned from dad. Other times I’d have to stop and untangle the line, kneeling in the green, wind trying to carry me away too.

God, I loved that feeling. When the kite finally caught and climbed. I’d hold the string and just stare up, half terrified it would keep going. That it would snap the line and disappear. I thought maybe it would reach New York. Or maybe go out of the atmosphere. I looked way up and out and wondered what was there beyond the cliffs in the east.

I don’t know why I’m writing this down. I didn’t intend to. I came in to document a thought for the CC&Rs. The wind caught me.

I must say I don’t remember feeling God out in those fields when I was a kid. Not the way I was told I would or should. I’m still active in the Church. I go. We’re involved.

What I remember most is the color.

That bright, spring green. The sky that seemed like it might tear open from how blue it was. The red cliffs in the distance standing there like ancient priests. Little old me, out there by myself, with a tangled kite line and a lot of feelings I didn’t know how to name.

It wasn’t peaceful, exactly. I was mad at my brothers half the time. Hurt by something my mom said. Wanting something and not knowing what. But still—I knew wanted to be out there. I never wanted to come in, not even when the wind got too strong or my hands were raw from the string.

I think it was biology. That’s what I was feeling. Not the schoolbook kind. Not the microscope kind. Just—life. Plants brushing against my pants. Wind lifting something out of me. The taste of alfalfa blossoms—wet, bitter, green. My early sense of what living things are. That they move. That they don’t ask permission. That they’re always trying to keep going, even when they tangle.

I don’t know what to do with that now. I’m forty-two. I have a mortgage and a weed trimmer. But some part of me is still in that field, watching a kite go higher than it should. Wondering if the string will hold.

Maybe none of this connects.
Maybe I’m just tired.

But the biology part—I think I’ve finally figured that out.
I wasn’t alone out there. I was never alone.

Note to self: take the kids camping next weekend on Pine Valley!