It was a little before five o’clock as I walked across the street heading back to my apartment after my last class of the day. With my headphones in, I paused to take a look at the view of downtown Austin from the hill top and thought to myself that this would be the perfect spot for observation for my blog entry.
temperature was perfect, or as perfect as it could get in January for someone who grew up in the Caribbean sun. The sky was clear and the sun was still shining brightly — a pleasant contrast to the near freezing temperatures of the previous days. The students who walked by me seemed to be enjoying the weather as well, even though they were forced to screw up their faces against the wind. There were no squirrels or honeybees in sight, but there were birds, not seen but heard. They sounded as if they were playing a game of catch with each other, chasing each other through the branches.
I strayed off the sidewalk onto the grass fields near the theatre, watching as the wind made the leaves on the hedges dance to the song of its whistles. I was reminded of a line from A Sand County Almanac which says, “a tree tries to argue, bare limbs waving, but there is no detaining the wind.” (Leopold 66) Having grown up in the British Virgin Islands where I experienced a couple of hurricanes, I know that a tree is no match for the wind — once the storm is past, there are broken branches and tattered leaves scattered everywhere. But this weather was too perfect for a storm. As time passed by the wind began to whistle a little less and so the leaves stopped dancing.
Students began to gather on the fields, some playing with soccer balls and others with frisbees. That, and the buds on the trees in the distance, reminded me that spring was coming.
