South Wind

The wind is coming from the south today. How do I know? The planes are coming in very low above my house. When the wind comes from the south, the airport reroutes incoming planes to come from the north so they can land on an alternate runway. Maggie and I are a little rattled by the noise and head out for a walk. When I moved here 17 years ago, the occasional overhead flight path was a shock. After all, jet engines have one of the highest levels of noise in our environment at 140 decibels. Your car has around an 80 decibel level of noise and a typical home has a 50 decibel noise level - without overhead planes. Now I live with it the way I’m sure that people living near railroad tracks live with the trains. Certainly the planes don’t fly over as often as trains follow a track, but I have as much control over where the planes come in as someone would have rearranging rails.

Today Maggie and I make our way through windblown streets as I compose this in my head. Is that another plane coming? No, the wind just kicked up and blew through a tall fir. It pummels the flexible branches like a can can dancer grabs her skirts and shakes them and the air is filled with a rumbling rush of wind. Minutes later a much louder burst of noise and another plane comes over the trees, all but grazing the rooftops.

Working on how to describe the noise is another chance for me to see how keeping a mindful perspective inwardly helps me manage my perceptions of external circumstances. In turn my inner experience is calmer. Years ago my young friend Amelia and I were walking over the highway walkway to meet her mother coming from the transit center on the other side of the freeway. As we neared the overpass and the cars rushed outside our view, three year old Amelia said, “I can hear the ocean!” It reminded me of all the times I held to my ear the conch shell that my dad brought from Miami as I imagined the worlds within a magic shell. The ocean I heard and my feelings about the ocean were all in my mind. - Michelle