“Chaos, chaos, chaos, damn wind, I hate it” she says to herself, it messes with her chi, something she always has believed and was quite vocal about along with the cumbersome feeling of it creating a sense of claustrophobia. There she stands waiting for the next gust, bracing herself so not to fall over, waiting just waiting for the next fierce rush that has become an irritating force of nature, the tornado like sensation that literally will stop her in her tracks, she can’t see it, but she can feel it. “ Why must it keep going?”, she says angrily. The flushing of sounds between the rustling of trees, the crackling and scraping sound of trash as it rolls along the street side, picking up bits and pieces of loose dirt and gravel , several more gusts, whoosh, whoosh, as the chilling wind has zero intent in its purposeful act but to blow and cause chaos where ever it pleases.
She listens and waits. She can hear what’s coming next. A pause in the chaos, hmm, has it stopped so she can move forward now? Can she resume her journey? The street is wet and dirty with debris scattered from one side to the other. Fast food related wrappers strewn along the gutters and storefronts creating the illusion of dirty snow laden sidewalks. Wishing it was dirty snow, it was from the discarded gluttony of human laziness to feed and toss it out and make it someone else’s problem. “Such a waste”, she thinks as she decides to stop and sit on the curbside to take a rest. Her gaze falls upon a single greasy wrapper laden with bits of leftover cheese and meat bits. She wonders, “why would anyone feed their body such crap?” “Why feed yourself with sewage?” She is focusing on the wrapper during the momentary stillness that has been gifted. Thoughts of why do humans not care more about themselves and the world?
She can smell the waste as if its been rotting in that very spot for weeks. Disgusting decay coupled with urine, the smell being carried by the force of the wind so its stench cannot be avoided. She thinks about going forward, her journey hasn’t ended. Much more to go, seeking her passion was not an easy task to manifest, or possible in this lifetime. Her thoughts went dark as they often would do when joining in on her common everyday thought of “why am I here, and what am I supposed to be doing in this life”? She normally could avoid these thoughts because she never thought much of herself, she was, as she was often told worthless. She could not create any good in this world to benefit anyone or anything. Pretty much the fundamental thinking of her life’s story.
She was a sub par human, not especially smart or talented in anything. She’d called herself a Jackie of all trades, just a little of this and that, no real passion in succeeding in anything. People would try to encourage her and boost her up, but really until she believed she was special, it wasn’t real.
In that moment a small rat steals her from her mind and its rambling. “It’s so cute”, she thinks, and returns her thoughts and says, “it’s really was a waste of time thinking about these things.” “I just need to keep moving forward”. The rat looks at her with its dark eyes and she says, “hey little one, what are doing out here?” The rat steps back as if it was being threatened. She then notices what has drawn the critter out of its safe place and captured the its attention.
There was something special about that rodent, she could relate to it. She loved animals, more than humans most of the time. The wind shifts a bit, not as hard, more of a breeze when she notices how the little critter is focused on the greasy wrapper she had taken notice of earlier. It was shifting its gaze from the wrapper to her, it would stop and take a few steps, being cautious as it evaluates if my presence is a threat to its next meal. She grins appreciatively at the rat’s determined gaze on that wrapper.
It wasn’t long before it takes advantage of a break in the wind, it takes off running as if it’s an Olympian runner competing for the gold. It grabs the wrapper with great force, losing grip only to regain it due to the greasy texture and then, as she figured it would happen, a sudden whoosh, to test the rats tenacity, the wind begins to roar and cause chaos once again. The little critter’s ears are laying back, flat against its face from the wind, yet, it won’t stop, its teeth bared and little hands are bracing so not to slide backwards, back legs gripping, reaching for support on the dirty street, it gains momentum with a brief pause of the wind, it realizes at this point, it now has become a real challenge, it loses grip and its prize begins to float away.
The wrapper begins to floating side to side with the rhythmic gusts of wind, still focused, this little critter is not giving up. She watches it, while bracing herself from the gust and witnesses the focus the rat maintains, that “I’m not giving up” determination on its face. It knows that it will catch that wrapper, no matter what it will take.
The grease laden wrapper is whisking by her, she knows the rat will have great difficulty catching it at this rate, she stands up and steps on the wrapper as it flows along the street. The rat stops, evaluating the situation, was going after the wrapper really worth it? It steps back with slight intimidation, its watching her as she picks up the wrapper and walks toward the rat. Wind still gusting, she looks around and sees a rock, a pretty good size rock, one that she can easily pick up, but the rat, not so much. She picks it up and places it on part of the wrapper that doesn’t have anything edible or substantial ‘food like’ substance on it. The rat, still focused, wonderment in its eyes, clouded by the conflict of instinct and hunger, it steps back and hides behind a discarded box. She says, “it’s okay little one, this should help your challenge a bit.” “I know you won’t take it from me, but at least you can get it from here, enjoy!”
She walks away with the wind thrusting her hair away from her face with such force that she loses her footing for a step or two. Smiling as she walked away, she knew that the small amount of cheese and meat would be a royal treat for the critter and it would be enjoying its feast soon.
The rat waits, its hesitation earned from its history of not being able to trust humans, it waits, wind is still blowing, can it retrieve the wrapper still? Can it make it before she does? Is she coming back? Is this a trick? It makes its move and with the grace of a leopard leaping on its prey, attacking the wrapper and pulling with great force with its teeth until it rips and comes free. Turning quickly to run it takes its trophy and scurries away in glee, its head flinching from side to side, moving with the gusts of wind, not fighting the force but using the wind to its advantage, allowing it to push it forward while watching for potential thieves with the hopes it can enjoy its latest treat without interruption. This time the critter had won and it knew that it wasn’t going to be like this every time.
She becomes stuck in a holding pattern as the wind gust through her, stealing her strength, passion, motivation, and energy. “It’s an evil thing the wind”, She thinks, “yet how dreary the sky would be without it, and then she remembers, the skies are pretty much dreary nowadays. The pollution has taken the earths beauty and it hasn’t been the same in decades. She recalls back to being a child, blue skies blanketed her view forever, the horizon a view not to miss. Cascading colors of hues in blue and white. She thought, what a beautiful world we live in, such beauty in nature.
As she grew older her mind grew increasingly more dark along with the sky. The wind no longer carried the dirt and pollution away. Rather, created cyclones of trash, waste and pure ugliness. It carried along the ugliness and chaos of the human existence she referred to as life. She thinks about the rat and its struggle for something so irrelevant in her mind, yet it carried a great significance in that little critter’s. She knew that rat was no different from anyone else who faced a challenge.
She spoke aloud, no one could hear her anyway, the wind, pounding like drums during a solo with no regard to its audience. She said, “if only we could focus our passion with such determination as that rat had and did, would we be happier, would we be more fulfilled, would we be able to walk through the wind instead of against it?” She shouted at the sky as if there would be an answer. She stood there as her hair, clothing was be forced with thrust and whoosh one after another, pushing her as to knock her to the ground and begging her to give up. She gathers herself and shouts once again, “I’m not giving up, it’s not going to be that easy”. She takes another step and stops.
She gazes upon the sky and its dirty renderings of years of abuse, a tear drops from her eye as she realizes how much of life is wasted on thinking about doing things, with great intent, nonetheless, never really accomplishing anything. We leave a trail of broken pieces for others to find and those who have the clarity to see the beauty in those pieces will treasure them. For those of us who allow those pieces to fall off us like dead skin, we allow the wind to control us, we fight it, instead of using it to our advantage, as her little rat friend had done earlier.
In the end, will she learn to stop fighting the wind and allow herself to be guided by it. She will give in to the challenge offering a conscious thought toward being aware of it as a gift, much like she did for the rat when placing the wrapper under the rock so it could retrieve it and give it hope that there is good in the world. Can she do this, will she do this, or will she continue to fight the wind and not allowing her to make any progress toward healing? Another tear falls, soon she realized, they were not her tears but they were drops of rain, as if the world was crying for her, there, in that moment opening before her a hint of clarity and she felt as if there could be hope for the future. It was time to heal. All she had to do was let go and allow the wind to take control. The wind pounded against her again, she shouts, “Damn wi–” , she stops, takes a step forward shifts her body in the opposite direction, the winding forcing her forward, hair blowing in her face. She smiles and simply says, “Thank you”.
ItsMeBarbi 