I’d forgotten how much I loved the wind. I’ve missed it without knowing I did. In my long wool skirt it isn’t cold so much as billowy, lifting me up, picking at the edges of clothes as if pulling me along to play. I wouldn’t want to run against it, or fight with it but if I had a long craggy walk next to an angry ocean I’d stand all day, letting the wind play with my hair, letting it swirl around me like a blanket trying to pick me up. Maybe I’d get tired, and walk back inside for lunch, the wind beating my skirt against my legs like a switch, chastising me for ending our play. Then it would beat against the windows of my kitchen, come whistling in through the walls of my big old house, searching me out and dragging me back to it.

Wind, saying I remember you, I remember when you were small enough that I could knock you down, like it was a grandmother or some long lost relative. But I wouldn’t remember it, not until it rushed up to me in one gust and almost toppled me, leaving me laughing. I’d pick myself up and brush off my skirt, little bits of leaves and twigs coming off of me to dance, picked up by the wind. As the leaves swirled and dipped, I’d remember the bigger things that wind can pick up when it takes a mind to. I’d remember to be respectful of it, the way we respect the ocean and things  greater than ourselves.

I’d remember, but I’d stay outside too.