Speaking to the wind (not a poem)

“What’s that noise?”

“It’s the wind. It’s speaking to us.”

“What’s it saying?”

“I don’t know. I don’t speak wind.”

Thank you Buck, Crash and Eddie from Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs for giving me such a powerful topic to touch-talking to the wind or at least listening.

There is an old saying that says that we are to go with the wind.  Go with which ever way the wind blows.  Change when the wind changes.  This is all fine and dandy, but what happens when you are not fluent in wind?  I cannot speak for everyone, but I apparently missed that semester when “wind” was offered as a language. 

Despite my lack of fluency in speaking “wind”, I have always prided myself on trying to go with the wind.  Which ever direction the wind blew, I was willing to follow.  For the most part, I still am.  However, as my days grow old, I’ve also realized that I truly do not understand what the wind is trying to tell me.  I realized that all of my conversations with the wind have been one sided and that I need the wind to dumb it down to my level. 

There has been a serious disconnect between the wind and myself; especially, recently.  Maybe I never truly listened to what it had to say or maybe I only chose to take pieces of the conversation and turn it into what I wanted to hear.  Either way, I am far off from where the wind was leading me. Or at least that is how it feels.

The path that I am currently on has left me with turmoil and despair.  There have been some sites that I would never replace, but the roughage of the path itself leads something to truly be desired.  With that, I cannot help but wonder why it is that the wind would lead me in this direction.  What is the point? Is there a point? Am I really following the wind or did I create my own current?  It is hard to decide for, but whatever the case may be-I am no longer where I am meant to be (or want to be).

I chose this path, not only because I thought that the wind was calling me in this direction, but also because I needed an escape.  My path at the time had become stale and in serious need of repair. I was drowning and the wind was just making it worse.  It had laid in front of me two paths and seemed to be calling me to both.  It felt like the wind was whipping me from both sides. It was almost like being in a tornado.  Stuff flying around and chipping away at one’s sanity; however, now it feels like that was more of a dust storm. 

Truth is I don’t mind tornadoes. I find them intriguing. Their power and the beauty of their grace, it is just mesmerizing.  However, with that said, I’d chase one in a heart beat but if I cannot escape it I’d prefer not to be stuck in it.  So, like most in a tornado, I took the easiest and safest route possible.  I chose to take the path more traveled. Robert Frost would be ashamed.

I think that I knew from the second that I chose this path that it was the wrong one, but I thought that it was the best one at the time. It was my way out and I desperately needed it.  It was all down hill from there, but as I write that I cannot say that it was completely down hill.  There is a purpose. We just often refuse to see it until we are sitting deep within the ocean of sorrow and see the sun of epiphany and self-actualization staring down at us.

I would like to say that they were just staring down at me, but the truth is they smacked me in the face.  Multiple times…every morning to be exact.  I see the sun and I see the dreams, but as the day proceeds they both seem to disappear.  Then I am left with this empty, wondering “what if”.  That is more detrimental than just taking the wrong path.

Always sitting around and wondering what if. What if I had done this? What if I had done that? What if I had move there instead of here?  What if I had not said this? What if I had not said that?  This weighs a lot heavier than how the wind speaks.  That is where the turmoil and despair comes in to play.  This is where disconnect with the wind comes into play. 

I realize that it is not that the wind is guiding us wrong when we end up where we do not think we should be.  The odds are we do need to be there. There is a reason and there is something that we need at that moment in time.  It can be a simple “duh” moment or it can be more soul searching moment, like remembering your dreams and passions or even just remembering the person you had set out to be in the first place. 

That would me.  I cannot guarantee that I am truly on the right path, but even with this wrong turn I have been able to see a little bit more of the sun.  I have remembered what truly makes my heart flutter and I remembered what truly burns within me.  Most importantly, I started remembering the person that I had started out to be as well as how to get there. 

I have seen trees that I never knew existed and I have seen rainbow even when it does not exist.  Smelling the flowers has nothing on the things I’ve taken the time to smell, even the maneuver pile that I managed to step in.   I realized and started appreciating things that I never would have had I not gone with the wind. 

Paths are never truly what we want them to be.  There are always rocks, sometimes even boulders, on our path.  It is going to feel wrong and it is going to feel right.  There will be despair and there will be happiness.  Most importantly, there will always be a purpose.  Each test and trial that we encounter will bring something out in us.  A little bit of light and a little bit of wisdom.  Each test and trial makes us a little bit more than we were before and a lot stronger come tomorrow’s light.

The wind speaks a foreign language to us, but it is often because it is directing us in a way that we did not want. Is the wind guiding us wrong?  No.  The wind is guiding us to the moment in time that we need, sweeping away the debris that is keeping us from growing and moving on.  The wind guides us to where we need to be, we just need to remember to accept the wind for what it is. 

The wind can be relieving, like on a hot summer day. It can be brutal, like on a cold winter day. It can be ripping and dismembering, like in the midst of a storm.  However, at that moment in time the wind is what it needs to be and we make the most of it and find a way to work with it.  Shouldn’t we do the same for the direction in time that we’ve been led to?