Getting the wind up…

If there were cobwebs to be blown away, then yesterday was the day to do it.

It really was a blowing away day, a good drying day if only you could have stopped the sheets from being ripped from the line and cast into the atmosphere. A Dorothy day as I call them; I almost expected to see an old woman on a bicycle riding high above the houses in the air. Trees down, waterfalls running backwards, huge waves at the seaside, and suddenly the leaves – which have been clinging on valiantly – are dropped all over the ground.

It’s an occasional thing, this getting hit by the tail end of a hurricane; another example of the US bestowing us with their leftovers. I don’t mean that in an unkind way, but honestly I think people would be quite happy for them to keep it all to themselves. Of course, by the time it hits us it’s just a bad storm, the hurricane all hurricaned out, hardly any swish left in the tail, just a strong wind that’s all.

But I do so love a windy day.

Sometimes, when I’m on the beach on a windy day, I pick up carrier bags, hold them in the air to fill them with wind and when I let them go they fly away along the beach all of a tumbling scatter. Once I found a huge sheet of black polythene and spent a happy hour flying it like an untethered flag on two strings, one in each hand, a plastic magic carpet floating above the sand.

Walking home last evening I was treated to the sight of four carrier bags playing chase high in the air above the roofs of the three storey houses. Tesco, pound shop, Sainsbury; it almost seemed as if they were dancing as they ducked and dived, not quite falling to earth, to be scooped up by another gust to dance their merry dance once more. It’s amazing how beautiful carrier bags can seem when filled with wind and set free. They reminded me of strange birds in some weird mating ritual, or the urban kite flyers that I once watched from my hotel window in Hyderabad.

Willy wind - you can’t see him, you can’t touch him, but you can feel him, and when he's strong he can really put the wind up you.

The wind won’t blow forever…

Here’s a picture of a tree. I’ve passed this tree often over the last fifteen years or so. It sits on a winding road close to the sea, away from the cliffs, on the flat. One of very few on that road, a singular tree and I’ve passed it dozens of times but this time on passing I stopped the car and took a picture. You see it’s become something of a landmark in my mind and I’ve developed a relationship with it, a mental relationship not a tree hugging thing, and each time I drive past him I look at him and smile. Yes, it’s ‘him’ and he’s become an old friend.

He’s just a tree, but look at the way the wind has taken hold of him and shaped him, blowing him backwards on himself. I wonder how many winter storms he’s faced, I wonder how he feels when the wind starts to blow and his trunk begins to bow and bow some more, helpless against the force of the wind, I wonder if he still fights against it, trying to grow tall and straight, or if he simply accepts his gnarled, windswept shape?

He’s seems all alone out here - the only tree within branches reach, but he lives in quiet mutualism with the green-grey lichen that covers his close-knit branches, Ramalina farinacea - such a beautiful name. Maybe Ramalina keeps him warm when the wind blows at him, perhaps she talks to him, encouraging him to be strong - keeps him from giving in altogether and blowing away. Perhaps Ramalina (the lichen with the fairy tale name) is his comfort, reminding him that soon it will be the spring and he will be clothed in green shoots and leaf once more. Reminding him that the wind will stop - the wind won’t (can’t) blow forever. That wind will stop, spring will arrive, and he’ll still be there, bent almost double, but still there - his roots strong and deep, gripping the dark red earth that holds he and Ramalina fast and safe.

I’ve passed this tree often, this time on passing I stopped the car and took this picture as my reminder that the wind won’t blow forever, and when it stops we’ll still be here - my tree and I.