A Reversing Wind

It’s rained every day since I arrived. Every single day without fail. And right on the two week mark, just this past Tuesday, it rained its hardest. I woke up that morning and the world was humming gray. The gray stayed all day and with the light never shifting, you couldn’t tell time was passing. The daylight only changed as different clouds swung heavily overhead, clouds weighted with rain, ready to pour.

The clouds would sometimes pause for breath, but not for very long. Earlier this week, I thought we were in a typhoon, but I guess it’s just the monsoon rains. I didn’t, and still don’t, know much about monsoons. Somewhere in the Wikipedia entry about monsoons, is the phrase “a reversing wind.” I found that sweetly poetic.

This is what the Discovery Channel says about monsoons: Monsoons are wind systems that reverse directions with the change of seasons. Monsoons are often associated with heavy rains. During summer, moist air from nearby oceans flows into areas of low pressure and brings heavy rainfall. In winter, air is drawn away from areas of high pressure toward the sea and this results in dry, clear cold weather.

CNN has reported of chaos in the Philippine capital due to all this rain. Apparently we got 504 millimeters of rain – about 20 inches! This morning I heard that over 800,000 individuals have already been displaced due to the floods. People have been evacuated from their homes and much of the region is submerged. This is only the beginning of the hard part.

Yet in the midst of all the chaos in my neck of this world’s woods, I’m back in my old room, in the house I grew up in, considering trivial things. Like where has the sun been all these weeks? Or whether I’ll drum up the motivation to go running this weekend. Or how it’s time to get my new blog up and for me to get writing. In all selfish news, I’ve started a new blog! And this is my first entry! YAY!

I’ve moved out of Tanacious T, which will forever (at least forever in the terms of the internet world) hold many of my memories and mumblings from my days at Wheaton College. I will probably refer back to it often, at least for the time being, while I continue to process this new chapter of my life. On the back of graduating last May and an incredible summer of traveling, I’ve decided to allow my thoughts to settle like stubborn dust, but more unyielding, onto this new home on the web called Speak Soon. I’m looking forward to a fresh start!

I think of the words a reversing wind. And I’m caught there for a second, interpreting it in my own way, in my own life. I considered, for many moments, naming my blog A Reversing Wind; but didn’t quite like the sense of growing backwards that it left me with. However, for now I do feel a little bit like a reversing wind, changing directions because of the seasons. I’ve started a new season, and I’ve found myself at home, like I said, in my old room, in the house I grew up in. I’ve found my way back here after a long while of being away.  Can you say six years? (With visits of course!) But there are new adventures to be had here and so many stories to tell!

On the ride home on Monday, in a heavy burst of downpour on the Skyway, everyone on the road had their tail lights flashing. Cars sped forward at tentative pace. I stared ahead. Suddenly, all those blinking lights, disappearing into the heavy mist of rain, appeared to me like old friends, sending sweet, solemn greetings to me, almost like hands in the air, gently swaying.

There will be many, many stories to tell. Can’t wait, speak soon.

-T