Have you ever had a moment, or moments, when something outside or otherwise nature-related that normally brought you joy not only gave you the willies but maybe scared the holy shit out of you? I had a moment like that last week during one of several storms systems that passed through our area. I call our little spot of land Windy Hill for obvious reasons. And we take full advantage of our often blustery weather i.e. we have zillions of wind chimes. Okay, maybe not zillions but dozens.
Almost every corner of all four buildings has a set of chimes hanging from it and the big covered back porch has at least a dozen of its own chimes. So, even when it's just a bit breezy we have the blessed, joyful, uplifting song of wind chimes filtering through the air and the trees. At any point on the property one can always hear wind chimes. The rare occasions when the air is completely still usually occur in the dead of winter. There's also a weird thing that happens just before, sometimes during, or after a thunderstorm hits: sometimes the wind abruptly dies. This is most likely to happen at the freaky time when cigar clouds are trying to stir up tornadoes.
This is what happened one evening last week. I was back by the barn, the front end, not the back end that our last tornado ripped up, and I was joyfully taking pictures of all the freaky, gorgeous and frightening clouds moving past. Say what you will about thunderstorms and tornadoes, and I have, but they make for great photography. Anyway, the wind had been picking up and the clouds were spiraling and turning and churning like they do sometimes before a tornado drops down when everything went dead.
Our near-constant breeze suddenly stopped. It was as if the local spirits, or fairies or Those Who Are in Charge of Air got a punch in the gut and lost their breath. For a few minutes the atmosphere stopped breathing. And just before everything went still and got stuffy the wind chime right behind me gave a small and sad little tinkling of sound as if trying to defy the danger of the storm. It was chilling. You ever have a moment like that?
4 comments:
Well tell me about it!
Livia, something similar happened to me not long ago. Our Wind is similar to how you describe yours, especially on warm afternoons. It blows fairly constantly and we are used to it. I have wind chimes, as well.
But one afternoon, Wind died. There was suddenly no sound...nothing. Still as anything. That was a tad creepy all by itself, but all of a sudden the chimes began to play.
My eyes grew large, and I just listened. It was weird! They played for a bit, then stopped. A few minutes later, Wind started up again.
This incident had receded in my memory until I read this post this morning. On thinking back, even if the hair on the back of my neck stood up, it was kinda neat!
I have. Powerful...
I've had several, so hard to narrow one down to talk about... may be a bit more common in Tx, where we don't always have breezes.
I'll have to recall one, see if there's the EERIE you describe... but I mostly recall several times where my thoughtline at the time, coupled with the noticed stillness, was like unto a voice or confirmation from the gods...
Hi Marion! Those moments when the wind dies make me think of the phrase "the deep breath before the plunge". It's as if they gods, or the spirits, etc., have something important to say or do and must take a big lungful of air before they get down to it.
Cygnus, you don't have many breezes in Texas? Wow, I don't think I could live there. But looking forward to hearing about your eerie weather moment(s).
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