A Tale of Wind and Sea
You cannot catch the wind. It shifts air, it soothes warm nights and destroys, it brings signs of better days or weeks of isolation, it supports the birds’ flight and helps the trees sing. And yet, you cannot catch the wind. It has its own mind. It comes and goes at will, and therein lies its beauty, its fascination. It is free, free, free…
We use all sorts of verbs before nouns. That is how language works. Let’s take for instance love. We create, build, sustain, feed, ignore, misuse, abuse, destroy, recreate love. And sometimes we let it die. But we almost never allow love. Inaction not as a weapon of mass destruction, but as a sign of trust in the flow of life. What is meant to be will be. That has always rubbed me the wrong way. I believe in action as a way to make the world as you want it to be. And yet, in the case of the moving air I hold no power. So I must allow it to come and go at will. Enjoy its caress when it is here and focus on the sun and the rain when it decides that other realms need its calming presence.
Have you noticed? Even when the wind is annoying, it glues your hair to your lip gloss, it tangles the curls in your glasses, it freezes your soul with a single blow, even then there is peace in its presence. Because it breaks the silence of our own thoughts with its monologue.
You may disagree with me when I talk about the little perfect moments. But they gather in the soul like fireflies, and, sometimes, suddenly, you have enough of them in you to power a house with broken light bulbs. Because the beauty of the sea lies in the beauty of each ebb and flow. The Morning Star is fascinating because it flickers. And light hurts your eyes when it is shined fully at full blown power. One needs the toning down, needs to turn off the lights from the switch, not by breaking the bulbs.
And back to the wind. One cannot wear masks when the wind is blowing. It seeps under them and lifts them away. There is no possibility to keep rose-colored glasses on the face to hide the red flags. Flags that the wind moves and flags that the wind can tear down.
The wind can crash through walls with one powerful gust and shape stone with day by day breezes. Like the sea. And it cannot be one way. It changes minute by minute. It makes the sea peaceful or angry, destructive, enticing. And then it brings peace to it, like in a game. Triggers of unleashing power, because otherwise it would be unmanageable. They are mirroring each other, in an immortal dance. When the wind is calm and playful, the sea answers with white tiny waves and seagulls and banks of fish. And there are times when the wind is angry and frozen. And the sea shows its face of wrecker, it lifts the waves to heights unseen and throws them at passersby. Or maybe the sea freezes as well. Immobile. Leashed.
But there are times when the wind is frolicking and makes the sea play as well. Goofy kids.
And the world delights in their game. And they allow the game, as part of them, as natural. Yet life is not just games or just light. There is no final conversation, no last time they ever talk, because they are linked, inexorably. can destroy together or build, gather sand and debris to transmute them into something usable. When they have that “last time we ever talk to each other”, they both because… normal. There is no splendor anymore. So they choose not to. Even if at times their interactions are mellow and dull and at other times they sink ships with their rage.
But the sea is shifting, and the wind as well. They are immortal and beautiful and terrifying in their power. Warm or frozen, agitated or peaceful, shifting or still. Never boring. Always splendid. And fascinating. And free.
