She wrote, “I don’t find wind terribly interesting.”
I didn’t know how she could say that. I twirled that phrase around and asked myself if I could ever make a claim like that. Not terribly interesting? Wind?
This morning when I sat outside on my garden bench engaging again in a fruitless attempt to meditate, each time I would find that deep inhale and release, a breeze would sneak under the branches of the apple tree. Invisible elements collided with my skin with gentle force and I was touched. My arm, my face, my hair, my knee wrapped around by wind. My borders made apparent by this clear movement.
I have stood on hills and flat ground and beaches, in ravines and parking lots and alleys, next to ponds, between skycrapers, on boats. In all those places I have been accompanied by wind. In all those places, wind showed a different quality, varied, by degree, direction, intensity. In all those places, wind was an essential element of that moment. Sometimes I have missed the flavor it added, often I have not. I listen to wind. I feel wind. I watch what wind does with leaves, branches, birds, and clouds. I often wait for wind’s touch when I step out into my back yard. It is an exceptional, important, vibrant aspect of my experience of life.
Wind is an excellent mimic. With the leaves and branches of trees acting as fricative structures, I have heard wind sound like rain. I have closed my eyes at it raced in circles around me high in the trees pretending it is the rush of ocean waves. At its most vicious, wind has pushed itself through our towns and cities roaring like a murderous freight train.
Not terribly interesting.
I wondered how I could phrase words to convince her that air moving by forces of convection is interesting. I wondered how I could convey the moments of feeling loved and embraced by wind in its gentler moods or harassed and urged on by its aggressiveness. I wondered what it would sound like giving this force of nature its due.
I decided it didn’t matter. I know about wind.
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