Relentless V/7

I left work early today. It’s wednesday and my kids have a half day. They are old enough that they don’t need me to watch them, but being that the judge saw fit to have them reside most of the time at their mothers, it seemed like a good idea to quit early and profit with their presence. If I work the whole day I am too spent at night to do anything. I miss my kids being around and yet I was conflicted about taking a half day off when I woke this morning.

It wasn’t about the money. I need every centime I can get but the thirty one euros less isn’t going to change my world. It was more the sun. From my bed this morning I could see the sky was perfectly clear. Today would be a sunny day of full proportion.

I didn’t see the wind, in town that kind of detail is well hidden. It wasn’t until I hit the vines that I realized just how hard it was blowing. It blew unceasingly, this wind with a name - le vent Tramontane. It is the little cousin of the Mistral. It is dry, cold and often violent. It carries air from the polar regions. In summer it brings clear blue skies and a bit of relief from the heat. In winter it just brings cold air.

It isn’t only the cold that the wind brings. It brings forlornness. The cold I can dress for. I lived in Chicago for twenty years, we have a wind there called the Hawk. I wear six layers of clothes that are made of every material known to man. Cotton, silk, wool, synthetic, topped by a down jacket that is a hand me down from my deceased father. He got this jacket in the seventies, and wore it often. It’s my work jacket now and is still going strong. It was made when the ‘made in the USA’ label meant quality and not crap. In any case I can dress for the cold, the forlorn character of the days like today I am less prepared for.

My father used to always say “ there is no heavier burden than a great potential”. I think of it often in my latest in a long string of dead end jobs. I wish I could blame my current hard luck job on the fact that I am a stranger in France, but even in the states, though I gained a bit more money, I never had a job that could lead somewhere. I don’t know what happened, it did seem that I was full of potential. It’s these types of thoughts that the unceasing wind blows in. They are the opposite of sunny and mild.

At noon time I was happy to be leaving the vines behind. In the car, it was warm and quiet, and I was heading home. It made me recall when I drove taxi in Chicago. How stunning the sunny, but ice cold days in the cab could be. How the folks all frozen and distressed would enter the warm cab and say to me “how lucky you are”. Little did they know.