It was my day to pick up my granddaughter, Eowyn, after her school let out. Being I was engaged with my current novel, I gave only a casual glance, now and then, to the media warnings about disabled traffic lights, trash cans taking flight, uprooted trees, and downed power lines all over our area.
Before I left to get Eowyn, a friend called and warned me to be careful when I left, as she nearly lost her car door when she got out to go into the grocery store. That picture snapped me into the day and the hazards of being out in the strong wind, and it got me thinking about the block-and-a-half walk from my car to the school door, the one my granddaughter uses.
Eowyn is an eight years-old, slight-of-build, fifty-pound second-grader. She didn’t inherit my low center of gravity that holds me firmly to the earth in high wind. I feared my little one could be blown away or tossed into a tree and maybe, even uprooting the damned thing—okay, I hyperbolize, my mind tends to venture off into cartoons… Suffice it to say, I was concerned.
When I pick her up, we walk a block and a half to the crosswalk that leads to the parking lot and my vehicle. Eowyn is one of those kids who makes a person tired and dizzy just watching her energy and rambunctiousness. Anytime. But when she blasts out that school door, she tears around, circles the area, finding friends with a similar need to blow off the school day’s confinement.
In other words, she most likely would not be up for having her grannie hang on to her for-dear-life. Also, I figured, it might seem humiliating to her, especially in front of her friends, to be tethered, causing her to fear others might see her as less than a second grader.
Believe me, I had an experience with her to back up my concern:
Once, taking her to school in the morning, I tried to get her to enter the building through a door other than the usual one close to her room. This entrance was close to the kindergarten rooms. She baulked, vehemently protested, complaining that that particular door was for the little kids. And even though, as I carefully laid out to her shaking little body, we’d escape of the freezing cold faster and still get to her class by taking that route, the horror on her face convinced me to let her have her way.
When she came out of the school door that windy day, I explained to her that perhaps we could hold hands so we wouldn’t land up in Oz. I didn’t want to scare the crap out of her with all the damage the wind was causing, consequently being responsible for creating a wind phobic child, sending her a therapist’s couch, but I did mention that I had a difficult time trudging up to get her.
“Don’t worry,” she said in a firm tone of confidence, “when I was out for recess this morning, I learned to walk through the wind.” She took hold of my outstretched hand and we set off for the parking lot.
Whew!
But I wondered, why would the school ever let the children out for recess in these weather conditions—then I thought of our three adult kids, all of whom are now teachers, and I get it. Beside, I consoled myself, quite possibly during the morning recess, the weather wasn’t so bad as it was then. After all, how would I know, I was deep into the other world of my mystery novel trying to determine who lives and who dies.
As Eowyn and I started out into the wind, I became aware of her gripping my hand and tugging my arm in a downward fashion. It was a bit uncomfortable, but I didn’t mention it to her as she was holding on tight and that was what I wanted, but I didn’t understand why she was pulling down on my arm so hard as we moved along, until we turned a corner and got caught in the blast of a humongous gust, halting us in our tracks.
Eowyn held me even tighter and said, “Come on, grammie, don’t worry, I’ll get you to the car. Remember, I can walk through the wind.”
My little Wind Walker kept a firm tug down on me, anchoring me to the earth, and she pulled me on.
(For more of my adventures, scroll down.)