Gone with the Wind

The weather was nice on Tuesday, warm and sunny, but fresh. I’d worked my derrière off for six days in a row and decided it was time to go zen out. So off I went to Sugar Beach. Once I got there, I discovered that the day that was fresh by my building was pretty windy when you got close to the lake. The water was downright choppy, even in the secluded area where another freighter loaded with sugar was docked.

I love this time of year by the lake. The heat of summer has dissipated, everyone has going back to work and school and there are very few people hanging out at the water in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. The beach is largely empty, the Muskoka chairs unoccupied under the pink umbrellas and somehow, this image triggers mood and imagination in a way that doesn’t happen in the summer.

The wind is now so strong and unbuffeted by built structures that it pounds against my eardrums, creating a chorus of sounds when air hits my eardrums at great speed. All I can hear is the noise of the wind in the leaves and the noise of the wind itself. It drowns out the sound of the water, any sounds from people and I can no longer hear the screeches of the seagulls. There is just wind, wind, and more wind.

I sit there for while, letting the wind blow against my eardrums and through my mind, taking with it worry, stress, thoughts of what I should be doing in the next few days, thoughts of calls to make, any thoughts, really. I sit and look out onto the unruly water, sparkle upon sparkle, so close together and so vibrant that it is like a sea of silver spots being thrown against one another by a wind that leaps and jumps and rolls. It is a happy place, there is a sense of freedom and exhilaration as if the elements of water and air were celebrating. They are free of the heat and stillness of summer, free to dance. Dance alone and dance together and I am lucky to be right there when they do.