When the wind blows

There was no wind for sixty days, and then seventy. Not a puff. Trees forgot how to wave their branches; sailing clubs sulked; kites lay bundled in cupboards where raincoats are stuffed; smoke drifted straight up into a cold sky, grey skeins of wool – like someone, so far above us we couldn’t see who it was, was knitting a giant jumper for the world.

The Mary Celeste, the world’s most famous phantom ship, lay becalmed in a ghostly sea world, and the wind gods, puffed out their cheeks, and then unpuffed them. They couldn’t be bothered.

Rain fell.

 
We missed the wind.

 

Pip the poodle liked the wind in her ears. She liked to bounce through the heather on a stormy day as if she wanted the wind to carry her away.
We wanted to climb the hill and face the gale, lean into it, like we used to when we were small, feeling that at any second we might soar skyward and never fall, like Icarus, but rise and rise and feel our arms feather into wings.

Our voices calling to each other: I am here. I am here. I am always here.