Even with the extreme restraint evident in the U.S. government's plans for striking back for the attack that took place almost a month ago, the winds smell of impending destruction.

The U.S. sends 1000 search and rescue troops to Uzbekistan (a former Soviet Republic state), so the Taliban sends 10,000 of their troops to the border and threatens to invade if Uzbekistan allows the U.S. to use the border. It might be a little overzealous to outnumber non-fighting troops 10-1, but it seems the Taliban is usually overzealous in most of the things it does against the west.

It has have offered to try Osama bin Laden for us, which, I guess, would save a little money in court fees and lawyers. Of course, if the Taliban really thought anything Osama bin Laden has done is wrong, one would assume that he'd already have been tried and strung up.

The U.S., of course, isn't falling for these kinds of backdoor shenanigans. And I anticipate restraint will turn to vengeance in the next week.

I could be wrong--I thought we'd attack within a week of September 11th (the preferred name of most for the destruction that occurred). But a month feels long enough to decide and deploy.

Sitting on the downslope of a hollow in the Manzano mountains (one side of which contains buried old nuclear bombs from the cold war) this weekend, I couldn't connect with the rest of the world. It was calm, only slightly breezy and the colors of the leaves had begun to change. Fall is coming on strong now, dipping below 50 at night for the first time since late April. Because of rains in July and August, a lot of the leaves are still green. In a couple of weeks they will join their orange and red brothers in arms before falling (with silent screams) to the mountain floor.

Sounds from campgrounds become audible only as I near the forest access road (a white dirt, gravel and rock road that begins as a two lane, then narrows to one as it winds into the mountain). Irish folk tunes. Children running, laughing and throwing Frisbees. Adults lounging as they loosely supervise their younger charges. Cookouts in full-on smoke mode. For the most part, campers, and even hikers, stay within sound distance of the two-pronged Fourth of July campgrounds--named for the abundance of color-changing tree leaves, which is not the usual for New Mexico. For the most part, trees in my state are evergreen--or dead brown.

Later in the night, after returning to civilization, a couple friends and I go downtown to a rock show. It's a benefit show, but no one seems to really know what it is a benefit for. There are pamphlets that try to explain, but they are vague as well. But this sense of doing something--anything--for our community and for our way of living is pervasive these days. Everyone wants to help out, but our disassociation with the actual event coupled with the distance between New Mexico and New York makes this hard. Give blood, give money, fly flags, wear ribbons and--isn't there something else?

So we rock and we roll. We drink beer, nod our heads and groove our bodies. We have trouble finding an open toilet. We wonder if the hot girl in the tight skirt and glasses is really with that skinny guy in a blue t-shirt.

"You all know too many people in bands," Leonard Apodaca, leader of Go Motor Car and owner of Socyermom Records says from the stage. This may be true. And if an airplane flew into the Launchpad Saturday night, a large chunk of the local rock community would be gone today. Of course, who would be stupid enough to try and fly a plane into a club that small?

So we do what we always do, September 11th be damned. Except there is that sense in the air. A sense that not everything is right. And something even worse might be on its way.

It was only in the Manzano hollows that I could forget and feel that everything was fine. The leaves are changing, fall is coming on, and it will only get colder until the sun starts its journey back to summer strength.

By the time that happens, everything will have changed again. And we will never truly be the same.

Matt Worley wrote this column Sunday morning before news of the bombings hit the airwaves. He changes from day to day, but only notices every other day or so.