I close my eyes and I hear the wind.
The house is quiet. The boys are asleep, the pipes aren’t gurgling as the boiler heats the hot water, the fridge isn’t humming, the dishwasher has finished its cycle. It’s just the wind.
It’s not the wind of last night, when I could hear the house creaking. If I’d looked outside, I would have seen trees bending in the wind, leaves furiously waving. I’m sure the garbage cans at the end of the driveway blew over in the night. I’ll right them later and put the garbage back in.
It’s not the wind of Friday, when a dust storm caused a 55-car pileup on I-70 in Kansas, killing eight people, on a route I have taken dozens of times in my life.
It’s not the wind of a tornado, roaring across the prairie like a freight train.
It’s not the wind of dust storms in the dirty 30s, when my great-aunt would place a wet tablecloth over the dining room table and put her young children underneath, trying to protect their lungs from the dust.
It’s not the wind that caught my dress in high school, lifting the skirt as I desperately tried to tamp it down.
It’s not the wind my great-grandmother was warned about when she was 7 years old, when a man told her to put rocks in her dress pockets so she wouldn’t blow away.
It’s not the wind that five-year-old me thought could pick me up and carry me away if I dared to open the screen door on a windy day.
It’s just a light wind. But I’ve been through a monstrous storm, upending my life.
I’ll be okay though. I’ve stood firm in the wind before.
Photo credit: Pam Crist (my mom), taken from the backyard of the house we both grew up in. I was not home for this tornado though I witnessed others from this vantage point.
Of all the weather-related experiences I've had in my life, I never got to witness a tornado. I saw a waterspout in Hawaii one year, but never a real tornado. Your mom's photo and your clear wind memories made for a lovely read this morning. Thank you.
Gorgeous!