photo by me

Yesterday, on my way home from work (yes, I went home sick), I was listening to the Diane Rehm show on NPR. Diane was interviewing the author, Timothy Egan, who has written The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl. Egan shares the stories of the desolation and depression of the people who lived in the Great Plains during the 1930s.

I was touched by how people were brought together to battle this natural disaster. I was also touched by how they endured one thing after another: the winds, the dust, the grasshoppers and, finally, the thing that really broke them, the Depression. They survived everything until they lost everything to the banks.

A caller spoke of how he watched his mother and the other women put towels in window sills and under doors to stop the dust from coming in. Egan asked if any of us could imagine how that would feel, to have an ever-present film of dust over everything.

I live in a mini dust bowl. The winds blow here often and hard. I live in an area that has relatively few trees because it used to be bean fields. What was left was miles and miles of soil that lifts into the air easily.

Constants:

  • on my window sills there is always a red-brown dirt. I can vacuum and clean and within hours, it will be back.

  • Dusting does not work. There is always, even after dusting, a fine film of dust on everything.

  • I dread going outside on some mornings because the winds are so high that I know I will feel dirt on me for the rest of the day. This is especially bad if I’ve just taken a shower and my hair is still wet. I know I’ll be dirty the moment I walk outside.

  • Carwashes, washing windows, washing the dog – all efforts in futility. The minute it gets done, they are all dirty again.

  • There is a reason I have respiratory problems. This dust gets into your lungs and it causes problems.

    • While I don’t live in the same kind of situation those people had to suffer through, I know how the presence of dust weighs on someone. It’s an irritant at first. Then it slowly becomes something that you sigh at and move on.

    There is nothing you can do.