Windswept changes

 

Windswept Changes

Usually I can’t stand the wind. It rattles the caravan, tangles my hair, and makes me mutter unladylike things under my breath. But today… today the wind feels different. It feels like something ancient — cleansing, talking, reminding, shifting.

Last night I had to say goodbye to my son and daughter-in-law after the most precious months together. Their first Christmas in their own home, family gathered like the old days when life still behaved itself. Now they’re off again — new yacht, new seas, new stories — and I don’t know when I’ll see them next. Bittersweet hardly covers it. My heart is proud — and aching — all at once.

So yes, tonight the wind feels like it’s scrubbing my heart clean.

And Sunday brings another goodbye. My oldest granddaughter is heading to boarding school — a brave new chapter with dorm beds and whispered midnight giggles. We’ve had so much laughter lately — music, puzzles, trying to prove we still have at least three brain cells left between us. I’ll miss her. A lot. The kind of missing that settles into the bones.

But life doesn’t ask permission before it moves us on.

And move, it does.

This Saturday a dear friend is visiting — just the two of us, the beach, a braai, and the kind of laughter that warms old memories and stirs up new ones. First time ever. About time, really.

Then there’s my biker friend. Sixteen years of friendship — the loyal, patient kind. He’s always been a steady presence, though life insisted on keeping us at a “holy distance,” as if the angels themselves were watching. Maybe they saw something before I did. Maybe I was just the slow learner.

He cares for me — truly. And I trust him — enough to ride pillion, which says more than poetry ever could. He would guard my heart, soul, and the rest of the fragile human nonsense that makes me… me. I’m still getting used to the idea that I’m allowed to feel safe now. Allowed to be held without complication. Allowed to move forward.

And the wind keeps howling — playful, relentless — styling my hair into shapes even Vidal Sassoon couldn’t name.

My new life is gathering speed, like a caravan catching the breeze.

Goodbyes. Hellos. A little fear. A lot of faith.

And the wind — blessing and nuisance — sings on.