Out of the wind…

As I drove away in my piece of past towards the uncertainty that is always our future, I felt it pushing me forwards as I drove, making me move faster, then faster still. I was running. It was driving me away.

It wasn’t until I’d got some way down the road that I slowed to look behind me - and there it was, the wind of change; that wind of change that people so often talk about but seldom feel until it’s raging all around them, blowing them about like broken branches in an autumn storm as they windmill their arms until they snap like simple twigs.

I slowed, turned into the side of the road and stood watching. I couldn’t see the wind, I felt it on my skin making me goose bump, but I couldn’t see it; only the effect on the things it touched. It was the wind that made the movement in the grass and trees, the wind that scurried the clouds across the sky, the wind that tumbled the red and yellow McDonalds carton towards the ditch and the wind that vibrated the telephone wires making them mewl like blinded kittens. It was all was caused by the wind – nothing and nobody had a say in its direction or actions.

I watched the wind for a while as I stood by the milestone. Who knew when I’d come this way again? Maybe soon, maybe never. Our futures are full of possibilities; our pasts have no possibility at all. They are known and gone.

Truth is I was sick of turning my collar up to keep the wind off my neck, tired of turning corners only to be hit by yet another gust.

As I drove away leaving the milestone behind I glanced in my mirror at the gusting plastic sheets by the pig pens. I was glad to be out of the wind.

Onwards and upwards? Well, onwards at least.