BY HANNES THUM
Last week, another cohort of students that I have taught was going through their high school graduation ceremonies. It was a beautiful day, although some dark, thunderstorm-looking clouds were building dramatically to the east (as has been common in the afternoons these last couple of weeks). There were some fine speakers on hand to lend some thought and perspective to the day, and the latest group of graduates sat in their chairs with that interesting and unique energy particular to this exact kind of event: anxiousness to be out in the world mixed with the nostalgic sadness to be crossing a threshold where their entire lives were about to change.
Certainly, this is an event that yearly captivates me with its threshold-ness. But, even we teachers can let our minds wander from time to time (it’s not just the students, I assure you, that can get lost in thought while looking out a classroom window during school).
Because I was sitting with my colleagues onstage looking east toward the back of the event and the open sky beyond, and because the crowd in attendance was sitting in their seats looking toward the stage and the graduates that they were there to support, I found myself somewhat distracted by a few things that I could see that they could not yet see.
Firstly, out over the heads of the audience, I could see the aforementioned thunderheads. I had been, as best I could without shifting in my seat too much, paying attention to their location and direction of travel. By noticing the distant mountain ridges beneath the clouds and when they were darkening, and by triangulating somewhat between one side of a canyon and the other, I could gather that the storm was indeed moving our way—but not, it seemed, so fast that it would impact graduation too much.
Secondly, I could see some strong gusts of outflow wind from those same thunderheads coming our way, as evidenced by some trees in that direction suddenly blowing sideways. And along with that wind came great clouds of cottonwood fluff.
One of the great hallmarks of this time of year—the cottonwood fluff—was headed our way. Great waves of it. And when the clouds of the white cotton blew into the ceremony, and when the wind that had been distant was abruptly right upon us, a collective intaking of breath occurred in the crowd as people marveled at how much of the stuff was, instantaneously, airborne amongst us.
Oh, these signs of summer’s beginning. The cottonwood cotton (which, by the way, carries inside of it the seeds of the trees) blowing around town and, even, piling up in drifts reminiscent of snow. The thunderstorms building in the afternoons. And more: the river filling its banks for a while longer; kestrels, summer migrants, on the powerlines near town; the warmer days. The graduates and their smiles.
Hannes Thum is a Wood River Valley native and has spent most of his life exploring what our local ecosystems have to offer. He currently teaches science at Sun Valley Community School.