1
Outside the kitchen window, the wind is whipping, jostling the tree branches with a vigor I haven’t seen for a while. So of course I have to stop washing the dishes and drive to the hilltop park.
Standing on the grassy peak, I avail myself to the gales that rush over this open landscape and delight in how quickly and completely they whisk away worry after worry. With gritted teeth, I bear the chill that stings my cheeks and stare up at the gray sky as I stay exposed to the gusts that promise to carry away all the anxiety that has long clung to my psyche.
But when an exceptionally harsh gust blasts my face, I reflexively turn away and see a woman standing by the benches down the gravel path on my left. The sight of her startles me. This is the first time I’ve had company while doing this here. And it’s not just any company. She’s the linguistic strategist at work. I’ve never seen her outside the office—and now here of all places? But then this makes perfect sense. If anyone at work has worries about work, it’s got to be her. When it comes to words, there can be so much to fret over.
I turn back to the wind, and after a few minutes, I’m almost as carefree as I was in my childhood.
2
On Monday morning, I’m on my way to a meeting when down the hallway she steps out of the office kitchen with a steaming mug in hand. We make eye contact and exchange discreet nods that tacitly acknowledge our new camaraderie. As she turns and walks away, I notice that she has a lightness to her, and I wonder if that’s how I appear to others now that the wind has unburdened me of my worries. Maybe our coworkers see us this way—at ease with a freshbreeziness that could be the result of a much needed massage or a really good therapy session.
3
In the middle of Wednesday afternoon, a shadow veils the page of calculations I’m working on, and when I look up, I find her standing in front of my desk.
“Let’s go,” she says.
“Go where?” I ask.
“The roof,” she says in a tone that seems to add, “Where else?”
She leads me down intersecting hallways to a stairwell I didn’t even know existed in this building. While we briskly ascend the steps, I imagine the serious talk we’re going to have once we’re outside. With a stern look, she’ll tell me not to tell anyone that I saw her at the hilltop park—something about how she can’t risk being seen as unable to handle her worries.
But after the door at the top of the stairs has closed behind us and we’re faced with only the cityscape stretching into the distance, there is no talking of any kind. There is plenty of wind though. That’s of course what we’re here for.
The surging air currents are refreshing, but soon we’re left with only an unsteady breeze.
“How did you time this so perfectly?” I ask.
“I check the weather conditions throughout the day,” she says. “That way I can seize every opportunity possible.”
Maybe for her being refreshed by the wind is more of a necessity. Or a compulsive habit.
When we’re back in the stairwell, I thank her for bringing me up to the roof.
“Sure thing,” she replies. “It’s nice to have some company.”
After we’ve gone down several flights, she says, “I can show you my best spots.”
“That would be terrific,” I answer.
I revel in the delight of having a personal tour guide to choice windy venues—until I become keenly aware that I’ll probably disappoint her. The hilltop is my only spot.
I can worry about that later though. For now, we are untroubled, revitalized for the rest of the workday.
4
After work on Friday, she drives us to the bay, and we take a trail that brings us to a sea cliff. Amid the knee-high shrubs that cover the precipice, we let the wind sweep away all of the worries we’ve amassed over the past several days.
“It’s amazing that wind gets rid of worries so effectively,” I marvel during the walk back to the car.
“Yes, amazing despite being logical,” she replies.
“Logical?”
“Yes. The way it works.”
“Oh, really?”
“You don’t know how it works?” she asks, incredulous at my ignorance.
“No. How does it work?”
“A strong wind can get into all the little nooks and crannies of the mind, and it gets worries to disperse into the vastness of the landscape—thanks to the pressure differential.”
“Oh, so that’s why a wind tunnel can’t replicate this effect!”
“Right.”
“So how come memories don’t get dispersed?”
“They aren’t as volatile as worries.”
“That makes sense.”
“Like I said, logical. But if you didn’t know any of this, what got you into wind bathing?”
Wind bathing! So that’s the name for what I’ve been doing all this time!
“Standing in the wind just felt good,” I answer. “So I kept doing it.”
“Ah, what a pure way to start wind bathing!”
“You didn’t get into it that way?”
“No, my father is a meteorologist and my mother is a metaphysiologist, so together they always talk about the research trends in weather and wellbeing.”
That must have made for an interesting childhood.
5
We get into a routine of going to windy places at the end of every workweek. Or more accurately, I get folded into her routine. She’s been doing this for several years.
On our fourth outing, she says, “Too bad no one else is here getting the therapeutic benefits of this.”
She opens her arms to the ravine we’ve just entered. As we stand on its gravel shore, cold air gushes at us, channeled by the mountains that flank the river before us.
“Seems like hardly anyone in this area wind bathes,” she continues. “Though that’s also nice. We have this gorge all to ourselves.”
And suddenly I’m screaming into the wind. The primal expression of existential validation just erupting from me. When I turn back to her, she’s just staring at me.
Then she grins and sprints toward the water and doesn’t stop when she reaches it. Her shoes splash audibly in the shallows.
For a moment I wonder if I should run after her, and before I can give this a second thought, my body answers by launching me in her direction. Then we’re both stomping on the pebbly riverbed, unconcerned about our thoroughly soaked socks, unable to care less about our pants cuffs wicking water toward our knees.
~
Soramimi Hanarejima is the author of the neuropunk story collection Literary Devices For Coping and whose recent work appears in Pulp Literature, The Offing, Black Warrior Review, and The Cincinnati Review.