I was sitting on the floor looking up at my mother. She was standing in front of the kitchen sink wringing out a wash rag from a pan of water. She bent down and started wiping my face, digging into my ears and nose with the cloth.

I pulled back a bit. She was sure tending to her cleaning chore with a lot of energy.

“Hold still,” she said. “You’ve got enough of the Llano Estacado in your nose and ears to grow a small garden. You wouldn’t want a tomato plant to start growing  out of your ear would you?”

“No, Momma, I wouldn’t,” I said, completely horrified by the thought.

I looked over her shoulder as she resumed working on me. We were in the middle of a sandstorm. The sun was high, but the sand was so thick the sun didn’t so much stream through the kitchen window as ooze through it. The light was a dull yellow. I could hear the wind whistling around the window and the sand pelting against the house.

The sand hung in tiny particles in the air in the kitchen. It was still inside the house and a bit stifling.

Satisfied that I was momentarily safe from being the breeding ground for vegetation, my Mom stepped back and rinsed out the rag. Then she bent down and folded the cloth over several times.

“I know it’s pretty close to wet,” she said. “But hold it over your mouth and nose and breath through it. It’ll keep the sand out of your lungs.”

She smiled and left me on the floor, returning to her work at the sink.

I held the cloth to my face and breathed through it. It did keep the sand out. It was cool and soothing.