Sometimes it is like thick, cool fingers grabbing a fistful of tendrils, but today it is soft, gentle. The hands of a child braiding your thick coils together.

It won't let you be still--it wants you to twirl and dance the way it does, whipping around trees and snaking its way through the dry brush. This force of nature shapes everything, even the hard granite.  The wind only wants to kiss away bits of silt that grind against the rock's back.  That is how it feels today: a slow, consistent presence molding you into a better self.  

Other days it is pushy.  A big flirt stuffing its long fingers between the buttons of your blouse and tugging at your skirt. It throws fits too, casting sand and pebbles your way when it knows it's not always welcome.

Still, in whatever form it takes, it will always carry away your burdens--the heavy heart, the endless to-do list, the crick in your back that makes your dreams feel smaller and smaller.  The wind wants you to get tangled up and flustered and maybe even a little gritty-eyed so that you forget to hold on so tightly to the flotsam of your day, the small hard facts that you think make up your essence.

You are not the pebble in your shoe, it says. Or the number of tasks completed. You are the number of dreams you plant and the moments you lose track of as you feel the caress of the sun-warmed breeze tickling your knees.

So let it whip away the debris.  Let it remind you that you are the hopes you tend.