WIND OF MARCH

WIND OF MARCH

She had always heard saying, since she was a child, that the month of March was crazy. In March you never could know how the weather would change , not only from a day to the following  but also during the same day. Now it was warm, almost hot, that you could think: oh, finally the winter is over, but after a while, a cold , and sometimes also icy winter wind began to blow.  Now the sun was shining, the sky was clear and after a few moments it suddenly darkened and it began to rain, sometime hail fell with the rain.

That March , as all know, is a crazy month, it was the first thing which Claire thought when the headmistress of the school , where she had been teaching all her life  said her that the school board had unanimously decided to fire her. From that same day____it was March 1___she would no longer have taught  in that school. Claire had been so taken aback that she could hardly ask to Ms  Hall  why the school had decides to fire her. When she had asked, she had heard her MS director replay that the governing body of the school had decided that there was a need to innovate teaching, and for this they had to hire teachers with a different training than ( from) hers, more updated  and more appropriate to the times. “ Ah, but, please, say  clearly that you are firing me because you wanted that all the teachers of the school are young!” Claire commented . “ And  have the courage, milady, to say openly that is not for a professional reason ( matter), oh, not for this, not for my training, but only for a motif of image that you decided to fire me!” Claire blurted out.

Not that she was so sorry about being fired. She had been thinking about leaving teaching , about changing job for not a few time. Of course, being fired like this, on the spot, from one day to the next, (it) was not pleasant. And she knew that at her age it would not have been easy to find another job.

But the loss of her job  ( her being fired) was only the first of the at all unexpected events of that really crazy March , which threw her life upside down.

Wind kept on blowing in those days of March, a wind at times warm, fragrant, a spring wind, and at times cold, frozen, a winter wind. And it was that wind which accompanied all the news, all the unexpected events which fell on her life in that incredible month.

Claire had lived for nearly twenty years with her younger sister Tania, who had come to stay with her , when she had had a child, Carolyn, who now was a teenager. Claire too, together Tania, had taken care of Carolyn , since she had been a baby, as if she had been her daughter.

A few days after she had been fired ( she had losen her job as a teacher), Tania told her that she was getting married, yes, she was going to get married Paul, whom, oh , Claire didn’t know, but she ( Tania) was going to introduce him to her that very day . Her sister  had then said her that, since she and Paul wanted to live in that house with Carolyn as a normal, regular family, couldn’t Claire have   moved  another house and left that to them?

She, Claire, had been very sorry that she had to part with Carolyn, whom she truly loved as the girl was her daughter. For the rest she could not be surprised by the insensibility and the selfishness of her sister, whom she knew well. Indeed it  would have been a truly liberation to have not to live with her anymore.

Claire had found an old house in the country, a house with a piece of land, which she could grow, of which she could make a garden. She had taken with her two cats, animals which she loved, but instead Tania could not stand them. Then she had also taken chickens, rabbits, and one goat too, for having milk.

Claure had organized ( herself) to sell her wood carvings and her paintings in the open air markets of the zone. Even if her initiative ( enterprise) had not brought her considerable proceeds, she thought that yes, she would get away with it.

In the meantime it was a truly, very great liberation to live in a house without having to share spaces with other people, and it was a truly liberation too, not to have to teach to lazy students every day, and then not to have to correct their homework…..not to mention the immense liberation                 which was not to have to question them  about subjects they reluctantly studied.

On the other hand she felt regenerated by the company of her animals, taking care of them was an immense pleasure.

Carol was leading her new  quite peaceful, serene life in the countryside, in the company of her animals, when Carolyn had come, she had indeed broken into her house , not alone, but in the company of a boy of her same age, Jeremy.

Her nephew, all agitated, had told her that her bad, very bad mother_____oh, you Aunt know well such a bad mother she is___Carolyn continued to say, crying_____and that one, that there, that asshole of her husband had thrown her out of the house, because they did not stand his boy friend Jeremy,  the presence of him.  Oh, he, Jeremy, since he wanted to be with her as much as possible, was always at their home.

Jeremy, while Carolyn , even barking and crying, was telling of her misadventures with those two bad guys, her mother and that there, the new hubby of her mother, (he) had remained silent, swinging, with his hands in his pockets.

Then, after her telling, and crying, Carolyn had asked her to host them, she and Jeremy, at least for some time, until they could find   a job , so that they could afford to have a house( home). Claire, although happy to have her beloved nephew with her again, had hesitated. Oh, just now that, alone and certainly not in conditions of ( economic )prosperity, she was acquiring a taste for life in countryside, among the greenery ,far from the noise and the bustle of the city, just now that she was experiencing  (living) a serenity that she had never had, oh, here that Carolyn arrives, indeed jumps in her house, to turmoil her life again, ah, as if she hadn’t already taken too many hits in that month of March which, ah, yes, she knew, it was a crazy month. However Claire had ended up hosting Carolyn and his boy friend in her house.

Since the first day living with the two teenagers had been almost complicated.  They, Carolyn and Jeremy roamed all over the house and even in the garden, listening to terrible, repetitive, deafening music, which was resounding all day, unbearable not only for Claire, but also for her beloved animals.  As if that were not enough, friends of Carolyn and Jeremy , their peers, came every day to visit them, and with them the noise, the din, the confusion increased.

Claire was dismayed. She didn’t know what to do.  Outside of the house, where she happened to walk more and more often, the March wind continued to blow, which for her was a comfort.

One day, walking without a precise destination, she arrived at the railway station and , hearing the noise, the rattle of the trains mixed with the wind blowing, suddenly she understood what she had to do.  But, of course, she had to leave, to go on a long journey.  So, after arranging her rabbits, her chickens and her goat too in a nearby farm, she took her cats, Tobia and Kirill, with her and she boarded the train bound for Paris. Oh, from Paris she would fly to Saint Petersburg.

She knew that a famous orchestra director had decide to become an airplane pilot for a French company, for a year.  Oh, she could fly on a plane piloted by the orchestra director.  This thought electrified her, like the March wind, which kept on blowing, on whipping, but now it was more and more spring wind.