I Remember
Creative Nonfiction by Ashley C. Shannon
The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from
or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. — John 3:8, NIV
I remember … how the Midwest wind sounds like a thunderous train, or floats by — lifting the tendrils of hair that have escaped a ponytail.
In elementary school, during the spring, you’d pull the ends of your nylon coat high above your head and run against the wind. In the open field, when your first-grade legs were going as fast as they could, you’d leap, trying to catch the gale in your jacket, trying to get pulled into the sky.
I remember the dry crack in the dirt when the middle of summer, with its long hours out of school, dragged on. When the only thing to watch and the only channel Grandma’s rural antenna received was South Dakota’s PBS. I know while Bob Ross paints “happy little accidents,” you go outside where the puff of the wind does nothing to dry up the sweat behind your and your cousins’ knees. Instead, you ask Grandma if you can fill up the cow tank with the green garden hose. If you can have one of her homemade popsicles. If you can use the flyswatter to kill flies.
I remember the wall of trees planted to break the wind (as if the wind could be broken). How the trees stand tall, like the architecture in cement cities, redirecting the path of the wind. I know the snow kept on the fields by this barrier, the livestock protected, and the calm that floats around the house. The magnetic boundary. But mostly, I understand the pretend tales you act out as you create homes in these trees and the attempts you make to climb them.
I remember one Christmas, as your family drove from one grandma’s to the other’s, the wind caught your vehicle. The ice spun the tires. You were the tornado, twirling out of control, onto the path of another. Until suddenly, you weren’t. You stopped. Safe. The wind quieted. Your dad turned the car around, and you drove on.
I remember the rock of the wind against the car — the staccato gusts that hit the gas station parking lot when your dad stopped on the way to Grandma’s. I know if you stay in the car, your dad might buy you a bubbly orange soda as he goes inside to pay. If you close your eyes, you won’t be scared of the blue 1984 Toyota Corolla rocking back and forth. The idea of the car tipping will be shadowed by the road trip soda that will make your eyes water but your tongue dance. I remember …
… the scent of the wind when winter releases its grip. The lilac points open, and the honeysuckle starts to appear. I know the feel of the fresh grass, tender under bare feet, when you can’t help but breathe in all the wet dirt and flowering bushes and robins showing up to pull worms and design nests.
… the caress of the wind, when, like your mother, you have an outdoor wedding with metal chairs, instead of the comfort of padded pews. When July forecasts heat, but you know the breeze will come. The open sky and the green grass offer their holiest kiss as you and your soon-to-be husband say your vows.
… the pang of nostalgia as you watch your son and daughter fly a kite. In the open space of the prairie, the kite soars up and up and up. The string stays taut. The diamond becomes a star in the daylight, winking, smiling, reporting the good weather and the how-you-dos of distant birds.
I remember after moving back to the Midwest, you experienced the deadliness of the wind. Although the basement protected family and friends, nearby, the wind whipped and whirled and devastated. Fifteen minutes later, as you drove your family home, you avoided downed powerlines sizzling on the road. Your foot leaned on the accelerator as you pointed out to the kids in the backseat, steak-knife trees and houses without roofs. You raced to beat the traffic that collects — drivers stopped on the side of the road, pulling out phones to capture social media clickbait while the red and blue flashes of emergency vehicles arrive.
I remember how every place you’ve lived has been touched with wind, yet nothing compares to the wind of your childhood, and how those memories merge into new ones as the wind tunnels inside you when you hold your children tight.
I remember how the wind surprises you.
About the Author
Ashley C. Shannon is a wife, mother, and writer living in the middle of the United States. You can find her logging her adventures with writing, motherhood, and faith on Substack.
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