WIND TUNNEL VISION

March 24 2014NB: A reminder to our readers: when you receive our posts via email it is always best to click on the title of that post so that you are automatically taken to the web version. In this way, not only do you get a better design, but you are also able to view any videos we post. Some of our readers were unable to view the video in the last post in the email version. We would also remind you that if you are introducing friends to our blog, it would be a good idea to tell them to submit their email address for automatic delivery of each post. Thanks muchly. M & J.WIND TUNNEL VISIONThe mistral arrived yesterday. Just when we were feeling nicely smug about already being lightly tanned, along it came, smacking us in the face, whipping shutters to and fro and bowing the upright spines of cypress trees, while whistling through every crack with ear piercing determination and, yes, howling down the chimney.I love the mistral, which is a surprise to me as I normally loathe wind. I particularly disliked it on Cape Cod where it would visit for 2 or 3 days at a time, seemingly blowing in from every direction at once. Maybe it was the energy that it picked up from the sea that gave it its restless quality, a quality I found quite disturbing. There, the wind had claws, which it used to tear its way into the house and into the psyche. Although the mistral can be damaging, I don’t feel it to be malevolent. Determined, yes. Mischievous, yes; but more than anything I love the way it whips the landscape into whorls, reminiscent of Van Gogh’s painting, the energy in which so brilliantly describes the mad vortex inherent in all living things.We’ve just returned from a hike with Sharon at the beginning of which we tried to fool ourselves into thinking we could find a path away from the wind. Ha! Surrender is necessary, along with some wisdom. Best to avoid thorny branches and metal signage, and definitely surrender vanity; any hairdo other than a bun, or baldness, will be destroyed within seconds.Today the wind reminded me of the years I lived in London from the age of 16 to 19. Those were the years of bouffants and beehives, which required at least an hour spent teasing lacquered layers of hair into an exaggerated base before carefully combing the top layer over this nest, spraying with more lacquer, lifting the whole thing even higher with a tail-comb and spraying some more. Meanwhile one might have taped a damp kiss curl into place in front of each ear and then, once dry, shellacked it into a perfect quotation mark before heading off to that evening’s dance or party. In those days, no teenager had a car, and so we’d head underground to the tube where, without fail, the tunnels’ crosswinds would grab our tortured coifs and rearrange them so that we each looked as though we were wearing someone else’s wig, back to front.What a difference age makes. Then, the elements had the power to ruin so many dreams. If the wind didn’t ruin a hairdo, the rain would do its job, dismissing the slaved-over curls of the straight-haired or springing the ringlets back into the ironed tresses of the curly-headed. Bad enough that you couldn’t control your destiny; beyond bearable that one couldn’t have the hair one longed for. Then, everything you ever wanted seemed to hinge on an ‘if only’: if only one were taller, shorter, thinner, plumper, blond, brunette, blue or green eyed, if only…If only the mistral hadn’t arrived I could have continued to work on my tan, fooling myself into believing it would make me look younger. If only…But the truth is, as I sit here now in the fading light, yesterday’s lamb stew on a low flame, the fire ticking in the grate, Joel working on his upcoming NY show, I feel only gratitude for the journey today’s mistral offered. Only now, from this distance, can I look back fondly at that young girl in the subway who, when the wind destroyed her kiss curls thought that all hope for love was dashed.The devastation we experience in youth comes from the short-sighted investment in appearance, whereas we who live long enough to have age erase our vanity, are daily grateful to have escaped any devastation that we now, with long distance, wide-angle vision, know is always just around the next windy corner.