The Four Winds of Time

I woke up early this morning, thank goodness. I usually do, but without an alarm clock. I am up by 03:15 on work days, so it is kind of frustrating for my circadian clock to be set at that time when it is my day off. As I awake, the surrounding elements in the dark are amplified and I am swept back many years, by a tidal wave of loud wind carrying small pebbles and sand that hit my bedroom window. What visitor is this that is so fervently grabbing my attention. It must be a visitor awakening me in this manner, but who? I lay there, closing my eyes, listening to the wind swirl around the corner of my house, hearing the limbs and rustling of the vines not yet in full glory beat against the fence. I am automatically reminded that I am not in that old house sitting in the field of sand in the country. My home is secured with nice brick and mortar with a metal roof and gazebo in the back yard. So familiar is the sound from my childhood, that I can hear the cable leading to the top of the old television antenna flap, slap and ping against the tall metal pole. I can imagine the snow and white spots in the black and white television set making the clarity and volume irritating. Irrationally finding nostalgia there, at a time that was mostly unpleasant. Especially as I am now sitting in my own living room almost 50 years later, in a room that is almost half as big as the old house we grew up in, watching a 58-inch, color, flat screen television, with clarity that rivals my own colored pictures in my mind. Beginning are the hues of morning peeking through the crystal glass door that opens to our living room. Soon the daylight will be clear, even though the wind continues. I hear the griping moans against the top of my fireplace, only stopped from entering in by a closed flue. Soon the clarity of outside will become cataracted by the different hues of dirt that will outline the horizon, covering the beauty that will reveal itself in its own time, it always does. Soon the locust trees will bloom, and I subconsciously worry that I will not get to smell them this spring because of the wind and sand that hits the delicate flower that drapes like white grapes. All you have to do is be near the fragrance and you have to stop to find out where this beautiful smell is coming from in this desolate sandy place.  A lone crackle can be heard outside, I know he is clinging onto the bending limbs of my large Pecan tree in the back yard. By now you would think Anemoi (God of the winds) would certainly be out of breath, but not yet. Our high school yearbook certainly has an appropriate name, the Zephyr, meaning west wind. The sun is peaking up and shines into the window behind me, slightly obscuring the screen of my computer. My wife has gotten up by now and is laying on the oversized couch that engulfs her as she lays there covered with a blanket made by her grandmother. She quickly began snoozing again when she became comfortable. My boxer, Lola has taken her place on the other, smaller divan, making it her own, rearranging the pillows for her comfort. Awake, watching the signs of security all around me as I finish my second cup of coffee, I know my visitor. The wind has awakened me to remind me that life is good, and I have been brought safely through the four winds of time.

Copyright @coffeewithcharles.blog (Charles D. Grant)