6 results for (book:sdpc AND heading:introduct AND stemmed:wind)

SDPC Introduction Valerie metaphor grief hospital death

‘Oh, sweetheart, if only you were here with me to see this,’ I said aloud to Jane. And as I talked to her I suddenly found myself crying for her again there in the semi-dark night while the wind seethed and roared. Deep wrenching sobs began in my legs and stomach and rose up through my chest. I tried to keep talking to her, but could not. ‘It must be better where you are,’ I finally gasped, ‘but you should see this. It’s so wonderful …’ And as I spoke I intuitively understood that the motion of the wind was an excellent creative metaphor for the motion of Jane’s soul, that its cool feel upon my face could be the physical version of her caring for me ‘from where she is.’ The storm of my grief eased after a while, but the wind and the light rain continued. I dozed. When I woke half an hour later the wind had diminished a great deal. I felt drained. I went into the kitchen for a glass of water. Was Jane’s soul resting from its earlier great commotion, or had she moved away for the moment while exploring other aspects of her new reality that were perhaps out of range to us earthbound creatures? I crawled back into my bag and slept until dawn.

The night was so warm that I unzipped the bag all the way down to my feet. In the half-dark I spoke aloud to my wife, telling her that I wished she was with me. I fell asleep. Around 4:30 A.M. I woke to the sound of a heavy wind and the feel of much colder air creeping in around my body. The wind chimes hanging in a corner of the porch were clashing together repeatedly. I zipped up the bag as spatters of rain began to blow in on me. The woods come down over the crest of the hill in back of the house, to the north, and with a sound like an ocean tide the wind was racing through their treetops, plunging south past the house and into the valley. Jane and I had always loved that great roar. The trees thrashed in my neighbor’s yard across the road. The whole scene was one of change and energy and mystery.

And I often feel this metaphor return as I step out on the back porch of the hill house and listen to the wind in the treetops to the north.

SDPC Part Two: Chapter 7 camouflage Malba instruments Decatur senses

[...] You know wind by its effects. No one has seen wind, but since its effects are so observable, it would be idiocy to say that it did not exist. [...]

[...] It is like the branch that moves, so that you know the wind by its effects; and a windbag like me by the billowing gale of my monologues.

[...] You can, of course, feel the invisible wind against your cheek, but touch involves an immediacy different from the distant perceptions of sight and smell. [...]

SDPC Part Two: Chapter 6 tree bark Malba Rob midplane

[...] It bends with the wind. It does not bend when there is no wind, nor does it stiffen, stopping the flow of sap to the treetop for fear that the dumb tree, not knowing what it was up to, would bump its head against the sky.

SDPC Part One: Chapter 3 cobbler Sarah village wires bullets

Now as seasons come and go,
He visits twice a week,
From worlds that have no wind or snow,
But still have promises to keep.

SDPC Part Two: Chapter 5 enzymes plane saucers Rob mental

[...] It floundered like a wet rag in a foul wind. [...]

SDPC Part Two: Chapter 9 clock sensation Miss Rob twenty

[...] You felt an onrush — or should I say an onslaught?of data in its pure form, rushing through the inner senses like a wind in a kaleidoscope because you did not know how to control or disentangle it.