Windy Weather

 “ Windy weather, windy weather,

When the wind blows, we all come back together!”

 

This little game is part of my story about getting hired as the music teacher at The San Francisco School—but that’s a tale for another time. 

 

Right now, I’m fed up with the wind. It has been so annoyingly present in San Francisco the last five months or so and somehow followed me to Michigan, where it rarely comes to our little beach. My sister is here for the first time in the 48 years I’ve been coming and I wanted to show off the luxury of lying on the beach— reading, talking, jumping in and out of the water, choosing the sun or the shade of the umbrella. You know— relaxing. The way summer is spozed to be. 

 

But that’s my issue with the wind. It’s hard to relax with it blowing in your face— or even at your back. It interrupts the sense of repose, blows the sand around, creates choppy water hard to swim in. Inside the house, the grandkids bouncing around with their energy create their own kind of indoor wind and I find myself just craving the tranquility of still air. 

 

I’m reading The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Society(Gabor Maté), Fearlessly Embracing This Burning World (Barry Lopez) and Leave the World Behind (Rumaan Alam), a passive-aggressive apocalyptic end-of-the-world piece of fiction I don’t recommend. In face of all the above, my discontent with a little bit of wind is hardly cause for complaint. I could rightly be accused of too much privilege, not enough gratitude for simply being alive—and especially in this lovely place, with food, shelter and the company of family. I get it. And yet I still complain.

 

Grant me the patience to accept whatever the weather brings. I know it could be—and according to my source, will be— so much worse. Maybe I should just fly a kite!