The Art of Rain and Wind

The Art of Rain and Wind

by Ina B. Sentia

3.17.21

I have seen the patterned artwork from rain and wind on stone. Rivulets of raindrops racing each other down the face of a rock wall, combining to punish the immovable object for the crime of existing. Arches, tunnels, bowls, narrows, cliffs, caves, and other distinguishably-carved figures that even the imagination-free can see. We gaze out at the mental horizon and visualize these figures:

-The “Terminally Ill Ostrich,” in the San Juans of Colorado;

-The “Emperor Penguin Has No Clothes” in Utah’s arid south;

-The “Soldier on a Segway Charging Away From the Battle With the Power Cord Dragging and Boppiling Behind” on the northern rim of east central Westchester Canyon.

Sanded down by the wind and shaped more completely by the rain, the features of our landscape are defined, and for our lifetime, they are usually constants in geology’s equation. It is a rarity indeed for someone to long for the unbroken chain of undisturbed granite blocks and unscratched layers of time, unshaped by Hedley and Schmedley, the Lamar Brothers of Erosion.

And so it is with my life….. My unanswered invitations, phone messages left unattended, and the misunderstandings of word, thought and deed from family and friends combine like the forces of nature to carve my personality and my life. Each small disappointment falls like a snowflake, gently covering the memory that arrived earlier. Self-doubt creeps in to close the open windows and lock the unbolted doors of my soul. With each optimistic effort to make contact with my tribe, my world vision dims, and I become Springsteen’s midget in the song Wild Billy’s Circus Story, ”... self-consciously licking his fingers and suffering Missy Bimbo’s scorn.” Unfortunately, in my world, most everyone seems to be Missy Bimbo, and each rejection becomes another coat of paint on my windows.

Life follows a path of indecisiveness known only to alcoholics driving a car and the tragically hip choosing their clothes for the evening. How do I choose a better path? Do I share the good, the funny, the beautiful, and the insane moments of my world with those that will rarely acknowledge these offerings to the Gods of Making Contact? If I share these gifts, I know the sadness that will follow me for the next hour, day, and week. I wonder what funny response I will see? Therein lies the reality. I won’t get a response.

Do I quietly write down and save these exclamation points of life? Saving them for….. whom?

My future self?

My sons, for the time when they come across my treasure trove of inside jokes and rubber chickens?

The police, while they are investigating a cold case 80 years from now?

A neurological research team, as they seek evidence of my synapses breaking bad?

I have no clue what answer balances the equation. I can no more predict the future than I can understand my past.

The notches are meticulously carved and the crevices are painstakingly crafted to create Nature’s sculptures. In harmony with the rhythmic cycles of silence and fury, my life takes on the distinct profile of the cirque, and the celebrity features of a couloir. Avalanches leave scars on their one-way trip to remind us where they have run unchallenged. Rain and wind tear and scratch the surface of mountain and valley; silence and loneliness craze the surface of my dreams and reshape my world. But just as a painter stains the canvas to create the art, wind and rain carve their own art, and I like to believe that the effect of trials and disappointments on my soul are the directors for my life’s performance art. No ticket is required. All I ask is that you show up to share it with me.