Michelle Webster-Hein

Yesterday there was a magnificent wind, so I took a long walk and let it push me forward and back. I watched the trees lean with it and the birds ride the invisible eddies of air. If trees didn’t bend, they would break, and the same is true for any number of things.

If I were a tree, though, I would make a disobedient one. I don’t like to be told what to do or where to go. It’s practically a Webster family birthright that when everyone else is going one direction, you go the other way. My people tend toward rugged individualism. We resist external controls.

But isn’t this pandemic so like the wind? It rose up out of nowhere, and it tossed our lives up into the air. It ushered us back inside and slammed our doors shut. We can’t witness it exactly, only its aftermath. It’s out there, everywhere, and it’s howling.

And here I am, still pitted against this wind. I’m spending most of my time resenting it for its destruction and disruptions, wishing it away. Naturally, this means I’m getting exactly nowhere—feet planted pointlessly, facing the roar. I wonder what would happen if I worked with it, like the birds, who ride sideways in great, gratuitous curves. Maybe I would end up somewhere new, somewhere I didn’t know I needed to be.

Photo by Mahkeo on Unsplash