I hear a lot of grumbling about the wind. A former boyfriend said if there’s a Hell he’d be in a wind tunnel eating raw onions.

The bigger of our dogs is cowed by it. It whistles past the house and she either huddles at our feet, or retreats to the safety of her kennel.

When a sudden gust picks up in a parking lot, people’s curses are carried to my ears.
My son just headed out to get a new game controller. He opened the door, then quickly closed it again.
He gave me a baleful look and said,
“Great – it’s windy now.”

I myself have only ever loved the wind.

When i was a small child, i believed it was god making himself known.
When the wind had really kicked up, all the other children would go inside to play. Not me. I had the playground all to myself then, and that was not a small mercy.
Thank you, Wind-god. Free from the capriciousness of other children. No cruel words to assail my ears – only the wind whistling, hushing, soughing, sighing, even shrieking.
Earache better than heartache.
Windburn preferable to blush.

Sometimes, while leaning my bum against the slanted posts of a playground parking lot or sitting as primly as i could on the seat of the cleanest swing, the Wind-god would come and find me. He’d make the dust dance in a circle to make me smile, or he’d make music for me in the fresh, green leaves on the trees. Living castanets.
And sometimes, when a car would come to pick me up and i didn’t want to go, he’d swoop down and pick me up –WHOOSH– cradling me in his whispery, tendril arms, and he’d take me up, up, up…

I stopped breathing because he was all through me and around me.
I was a bird and i was flying and we looked down and saw the little girl get into the car and drive away.
She was pretty and i wanted her to come and fly with us, but she never looked up. Only down.

I always lived the furthest away from school of any student. Long walks, sometimes more than an hour or even 2.
Glad to be away from home, but not wanting to go to school.
Glad to be away from school, but not wanting to go home.
Poor. Dirty. Odd. Other.
Not many invitations ever came to hang out after school or come to supper, but when they came i never said No. No matter who asked. No matter what their intentions.

I mostly wandered home, daydreaming. Dawdling, Mother said.
No concept of time as i had adventures in my brain. Confrontations with bullies where i said the clever thing and everyone suddenly liked me. Saving a popular kid or even the whole school and becoming THE HERO.
I was always glad when the wind would accompany me. Even when the weather turned cold. It wrapped its cold embrace around my skin and settled itself into my bones.

Numbness has always been my preferred state of being.
I couldn’t feel her slaps.
The stinging words always flying around me simply bounced off my frozen flesh.
My friend the Wind-god. My companion and protector.

Now, so very many years later, i still love the wind. It comforts me and makes me feel safe. I love being outside in it, whether warm or cold.
When i hit the road to walk all those countless hours to get home (DAWDLING!) i’m heartened when the wind rises to meet me. To hold my hand and whip my hair and sting my skin along the road.
I ask my friend if he’ll pick me up and let me fly with him again.

He says i’ve become too heavy.

I’m sad and so is he, my Wind-god friend, and we cry together.

I will always live here.
I live in the middle of the wind.