One summer when I was little, I became awfully afraid of the wind. Even a breeze that stirred the aspen leaves just a little...I would start to shake, myself. On a beautiful scuddy-ho day, when the wind whipped the lake to froth and whitecaps and gusted through the trees, the trees that had stood for a hundred years and would continue to stand though to my mind they seemed hardly able to bear the wind's pressure...I would hide in the bathroom with the shower running so that I couldn't hear. I might be persuaded to go down to the lake, on a sunny windy day, but would do no more than bob about with my hands pressed firmly over my ears and my eyes squeezed shut. No one could understand it, although they would run the shower for me and let me hide when I insisted sobbingly.
But I knew, though I couldn't tell anyone, that the wind was as wild outside as I felt inside. If I listened to it, if I caught the least glimpse of the aspen leaves turning inside out, some part of me that I held in check by fraying poorly knotted old ropes would break free and destroy me with its terrible shaking.
That is what it felt like to be little and afraid.
I don't remember what made the wind all right again, but within the span of that same summer, suddenly, it was.
I don't mind it at all now, really I love a strong, fresh wind, and can barely remember those days; but I remember the fear.
