Tumbling along
Posted by Toni Johnson on Wednesday Apr 21, 2010Under Toni, country life, humor, musings Tags: tumbleweeds
I’m a roaming cowboy riding all day long,
Tumbleweeds around me sing their lonely song.
Nights underneath the prairie moon,
I ride along and sing this tune.
There are times when I feel like the roaming cowboy, riding all day long in my palomino colored Dodge Dakota. There’s the driving to work and driving home - work, home, work, home, ad infinitum. I feel like a bobble-head doll – back and forth, back and forth. The only time the landscape changes is if I take a different route home (always the same route to work, however). And then most days at work I feel that I’m covering the same ground (or task or slightly different version of the same task) as I did the day before with the landscape never changing, always the same.
See them tumbling down
Pledging their love to the ground
Lonely but free I’ll be found
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
There are times when I feel like a lonely tumbleweed, drifting all alone, singing an off-key song while those around me are coupled up and singing their duets in perfect two-part harmony. Most times I don’t mind drifting all alone and I’m happy to sing my off-key tune at the top of my lungs, content in the knowledge that no one but my dogs and cat can hear me. The dogs howl with me. The cat looks on in disdain.
Cares of the past are behind
Nowhere to go but I’ll find
Just where the trail will wind
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
Some might say the tumbleweed is a bit of a free spirit, without a care in the world, but really that couldn’t be further from the truth. He tumbles down the trail, not at his whim, but at the whim of the wind, traveling whichever direction the wind feels like blowing at the moment. East, west, north, or south, wherever the wind carries it, right into the path of an oncoming car. SPLAT! SMOOSH! BAM! Lots of little tumbleweeds!! Either that or it’s stuck in the grill of that oncoming car, being taken for a ride, away from its friends who continue to tumble along. GOODBYE HENRY!! Write me!
I know when night has gone
That a new world’s born at dawn.
I wake up in the morning one week to find the wind has blown in from the west, filling the back corner of my yard with all the tumbleweeds from the vacant lot behind me. A few days later I go to bed with it blowing in from the east, filling my front yard with all the tumbleweeds from the edge of town. Dawn brings a new world all right – one of a yard filled with tumbleweeds that must be burned, because you sure can’t stuff them in a garbage can. My lawn care guy tried … I think he got two in there – they are huge (only 30 more to go)!
I’ll keep rolling along
Deep in my heart is a song
Here on the range I belong
Drifting along with the tumbling tumbleweeds.
One thing I do know is I’d sure miss the tumbleweeds if I were to ever leave. I think I’ll be like the tumbleweed and keep rolling along, because it is here on the range I belong…
[Lyrics to Tumbling Tumbleweeds by Sons of the Pioneers]
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April 21st, 2010 at 1:19 am
From now on, Toni, whenever I look at your dragonfly signature, I will see a tumbleweed!
Two images immediately came to mind as I read this poetic piece: yesterday as I was walking about doing errands, I heard a very faint howling sound. When I finally saw from where it came, there was a big dog in the back seat of a parked car with it’s long neck stretched out till it’s nose pointed straight to the sky…howling very quietly. A whimper of a howl. The dog who would be wolf. A tumbleweed at the mercy of the wind. And then I also remembered a speech by a man who talked about our days being like a squaredance…you get up, go to work, come home and go to bed, get up, go to work, come home and go to bed. Sigh.
I know we’re not fatalists (if we were, we wouldn’t be here at V&V, right?) but it does sometimes make you wonder what we’re here for! Just keep singing, and that helps, Im sure.
April 21st, 2010 at 3:22 am
Love this lighthearted view of life…and the metaphor of these tumbleweeds. Really makes me wonder if any of us have any free will..or if we’re all drifters who are simply drifting along like this and these weeds. Really wonderful post….terrific!!!!
April 21st, 2010 at 4:10 am
I had to look in wikipedia for tumbleweed, they are BIG, never saw it. I have heard the word in songs, figured out it must be some sort of weed, but never imagined it to be so big.
Love the metaphor, I’d say: go with the flow
April 21st, 2010 at 7:00 am
What a great post, Toni! Really enjoyed reading it. I remember seeing tumbleweeds when I was in US long ago and being really impressed by their size. I ditto POBSB: go with the flow
April 21st, 2010 at 7:35 am
a metaphor that touches us often I know … I see much of myself in the tumbleweed as well but you actually weaved words around it today tin a way that I never thought of.
I really like the patch of blue in the background..great photo Toni
April 21st, 2010 at 10:20 am
That was wonderful, Toni! Full of images and life all intertwined, you really made me see them tumbling along! And aren’t we all tumbling along at least part of the time? I love your image also…
P.S. I have a few cats that sleep next to me when I work and whenever I break into song, I not only get a dirty look but usually get “yelled” at as well….
April 21st, 2010 at 11:48 am
Beautiful post Toni! I too wander along on my own, seeing and hearing, the duets sung about me, the repetition of my days amplified because it’s only my voice I hear. But each day brings new versions of the same just like the gathering tumbleweeds in your yard and each day I must look at those “tumbleweeds” of mine and realize that they may be the same tumbleweeds but how and why they have found my yard is new and my task is to figure out what to do with them next – after all, as you stated, only two will fit into the rubbish bin!
Thank you for a lovely post and truly beautiful photo – the song they share is in perfect harmony!
peace to you …
April 21st, 2010 at 2:41 pm
what a beautiful tribute to tumbleweeds. we have lots of them in montana too and i do enjoy trying watching them blow in. they pile up on my fence line. but i leave them so i can look at them.
there is something rather freeing when you compare life to tumbling tumble weeds. they do go where the wind blows them, but they are able to go where the wind blows. no ties. just tossing around on the horizon.
beautiful picture!!
April 21st, 2010 at 9:55 pm
Beautifully written Toni. And you’re right – you would miss the tumbleweeds. I did when I moved from Arizona back to East Texas.
April 22nd, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Lovely writings Toni!! Love the metaphors!! I found myself nodding my head approvingly when reading this.
April 23rd, 2010 at 8:19 am
i remember this song from my childhood, my mother used to sing it to me (she was a total cowgirl at heart). i love this post – it suddenly makes me think i want to go and be in the midwest (we don’t have tumbleweeds out here)
April 24th, 2010 at 10:32 am
What a life you lead! I so want to be closer to the earth and closer to what God made for us rather than being inside all the time. I can take a lesson from the tumbleweed.
April 24th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Very nicely written. Sometimes I think were all just tumbling along with no control.
April 27th, 2010 at 1:27 am
I like the metaphors Toni!!
April 27th, 2010 at 2:58 am
Dear Toni,
I am your Mom’s across-the-street neighbor, here in Colorado.
We fight the tumbleweeds all the time, and I have always LOVED the song…will think of you and your Mom whenever I hear it!