Who Has Seen the Wind?

Who has seen the wind?
Neither I nor you:
But when the leaves hang trembling
The wind is passing thro'
Who has seen the wind?
Neither you nor I:
But when the trees bow down their heads
The wind is passing by.

- Christina Rossetti -

This is a poem that was in a book of poetry that I read again and again as a kid. I loved the book, in all its hard-covered, artsy-paged, rhyming-or-not glory. I flipped through it and gazed at the pictures, spoke the poems out loud, or sang them if they had a tune that I was familiar with. This particular poem was accompanied by a picture of a girl wearing a long dress, standing in the wind on a cloudy, stormy day. Quite dramatic. (And no, it has nothing to do with the "windy picture" above - I just liked the shot)

I love the wind, as does little Plava. She giggles as it brushes past her hair and blows in her face. I love the feeling of being cooled down by it, as Ryan and I gratefully were today on a long walk we took which unexpectedly ended up being mostly in the sun.

One of the oddest nights I've ever experienced weather-wise, was on a windy night at a summer camp, the summer Ryan and I met. We had been out in the evening romancing or wooing or doing something that newly infatuated couples do, and the sky was scattered with a few clouds here and there, which were illuminated by the bright moon. It was quite windy, and as Ryan walked me across the field towards my cabin to bid me farewell, lightning started flashing across the sky. I had never seen lightning on such a clear night, and it was very dramatic. The wind nearly bowled us over as we stood trying to look up into the sky and catch the streaks of white light before they disappeared. It was beautiful!

Speaking of wind though, I was reminded of a story from Japan today as Ryan and I were lounging in front of our newly acquired fan in our living room (thanks to his mom and dad). I've mentioned before that the summers in Japan were ridiculously hot. I don't even think the term "ridiculously hot" does them justice. There wasn't a moment that went by during the summer days or nights that my skin wasn't damp from sweat, or that I felt cool and refreshed (except in a cool shower or bath). The heat was thick and hard to breathe and the humidity was overwhelming. When we first arrived, we knew immediately that we wanted to get a fan for our apartment because although the air conditioner worked well to cool down one room, we really needed something to push the cool air throughout the whole 400 square feet of the place (!), and not to mention, the A/C was a little expensive to run.

So off to the store we went, sort of similar to a Walmart in style and function, and found the fan section. We stood looking at the fans, testing to see how strong or efficient they seemed, and were instantly lured into the wind of one particular bad-boy. It was a floor fan, encased in a thick metal cage, and it had two settings - low and high. Simple enough, we thought, and bought it.

We brought it home and tried it out. Sigh. As much as it had seemed an appropriate purchase in the store, we quickly realized that we had purchased an industrial powered fan. The wind it produced made us feel like we were standing in a gale force wind, and we could hardly leave any light items around for fear of them being blown over or flying away. It was cool and refreshing, but the darn thing was so powerful, there was no way we could keep it.

So we sheepishly took it back, having looked up the Japanese word for "exchange" and traded it in for a more appropriate model.

At least it was just a fan! We've since done the same thing with houses....ooops!