The Wind is as Wild as Anything

It may sound pretentious, but I don’t need people seeing my wonderful life on Instagram to be happy. It doesn’t matter to anyone, myself included, what I’m doing on this sunny Tuesday afternoon. In a quantum sense; the people who Snapchat says viewed my story aren’t here with me, soaking in the raw Wyoming sun and the rushing western wind, so they do not exist. The only thing that I can be certain exists is everything I can see.

I know that I love the summery smell inside my Jeep when it sits in the sun for too long. I know that it’s a strange and primal kind of joy I feel when I look beside the road and see flecks of green sprouting from the perpetual brown. I know that the wind is as wild as anything can be, and the mountains above me are as constant as anything I will ever see in my lifetime. I can’t completely abandon my humanity to bask in nature, though. I am still in search of happiness.

The question of what happiness is exactly is for someone else, someone more qualified. I’m looking for a practical application, one that I can pack away and take with me when I move away from here. I can’t take the mountains with me, because they do not move and are as constant as anything. I can’t take the wind, because it’s as wild as anything and goes wherever it pleases. I can’t take spring, because it’s attached thoroughly to time, and getting into the mess that is time will bring me nothing but a headache. I may leave here with the smell of summer inside my Jeep, but it is a very man-made thing, and it won’t last very far down the interstate.

To break this life down into so few elements might very well be both folly and foolish, but it seems to work for me. Here I am, in my summer-filled Jeep, watching the slow coming of spring in the Big Horn mountains. The wind rocks us gently, and weaves in and out through the cracked open quarter window. I can’t say if it is playful or simply curious, because the wind is as wild as anything can be, and something so wild neither plays nor wonders. I can say that I am happy here, and it is not because of views or likes. I think that I can also take this happiness with me when I leave this isolated turnoff. When I do, it may get packed back down to the bottom of my baggage and not be seen for months, but I am confident that I can find it again.

This happiness is simply what I love to do. It’s exactly like all of the career advisors and life gurus have said. When I am doing work that I truly love, it does not feel like work. To most people, writing is a task that’s best gotten over with. To most people, sharing a wonderful life on Instagram creates enough happiness. I’m not one to say they’re wrong, I only know that I create my own happiness, and I come by it differently. Not by the beauty of the mountains, or even the wild wind, but by writing it all down, so that when I do move away from here, I can take it with me. I can’t keep spring or the wild wind at the bottom of my baggage, but that’s where I will always keep a pen and paper.