Grace in the Turbulent Winds of ...

It is rare to find a time when the wind isn't blowing just a little.  And when it isn't, usually I wish it was just a small breeze.  I've seen and experienced different winds this year, but the one that linked them all together was one yesterday at the beach. 

A stiff northwest breeze sliced across the cool Pacific. With jacket donned and notebook in hand, I walked toward a perfect spot on the downwind side of the jetty. My goal was to churn up my disused imagination where most of my novel was buried under the flotsam and jetsam of my last job. From behind me and into my field of vision a pigeon soars and alights gracefully in front of me.  Like a wave washing the beach, it evaporated that flotsam and jetsam with a landing into the wind that, with its sheer perfection, must have been practiced a thousand times. No tumbling with the landing, no crashing, just a touchdown that couldn't have been better had the bird been a statue set in place there.

After settling onto a sunny boulder out of the wind, what should I behold but a pelican gliding along against the wind. Nature trying to pass whisper a theme to me here?  My imagination now gripped, I notice the waves and contemplate how they are ever driven along with the wind, only to crash into the shore.  Consider the fate of the tumbleweed.  Not a chance it goes where it might like, if it was to perchance have a thought different than to be blown with the wind.

So, there is a choice.  One is apparent, the other less.  We choose our own fates.  With the best of our logic and the quiet voice of our intuition, we many times decide to fly against the wind.  Against the wind seems like an unnatural choice when so many tumbleweeds and waves bounce right along with no effort. Flying against the wind takes practice.  That pigeon's perfect landing wasn't probably the picture of it's very first landing against the wind.  The pelican's first glide into the wind may even have gotten it wet.  But grace comes with a desire turned into a choice transformed into a commitment and honed into grace.

When it's time, fly against the wind.