Wild Wind

The clouds were racing all day today. And the wild wind is still roaring through the thrashing trees tonight. It makes me a little on edge now that I live in a heavily wooded area. Any number of trees could fall on my house, barns, fences, or block my 1/4 mile driveway (and my husband is gone for 2 weeks and I've never run a chainsaw before) but at least I have a basement now... and it's in a stone house. 

It's the second or third day of wind advisories. Today there was a tornado watch too. And it's no wonder. The temperature was 70 degrees today. It's headed to 27 sometime tonight. That's tornado weather if ever there was. In fact, several tornadoes touched down in our state today. One town is pretty much gone. Some have lost all they had. Many are dead and missing. (May they rest in peace. May their families be comforted and provided for.)

It is fascinating and frightening to watch the trees rock and sway this way and that. I imagine that if one took a slow motion video of the trees behaving this way that they would look similar to sea plants and coral polyps moving in ocean currents. My two youngest and I stood together at the glass of a window this evening, mesmerized by the whooshing rush of wind, the airborne debris pelting the house and hurtling about. The trees seemed to be reaching like hands as the branches twisted, bent, and swayed. When I looked at their silhouettes against the sky, it was as if I was seeing in the spill of stage lights, the swaying arms and hands of concert-goers held in the air while they themselves stood in the darkness.

It has been a long two days of running about, and therefore, no naps for my littlest two. Plus the kids are all a little on edge since their dad's gone on a business trip. The wind was sort of gearing everyone up too. So after dinner tonight, I declared a rare "movie night." I lit a fire in the wood stove, folded down the futon, and lined the kids up with their pillows in front of my laptop. 

What DVD did they pick? They call it "the monk movie." It's really named, "Into Great Silence."  It's not a movie with a story line, but it's not a normal documentary either. It's a sort of immersion into the monastic life of Carthusian monks in an ancient monastery in the French Alps. (See a trailer here.) I wondered if a DVD of that title was picked consciously or unconsciously. But whatever the case, it was a great pick. It calmed us and soothed us. It was such a treat to lie with them nestling close to me like overgrown puppies, while the fire crackled and the wind whistled and moaned outside. I am so fortunate.