A Windy Day

A woman is on her way to work and as she opens the door, she faces a gust of wind. She continues the walk to the bus stop where she waits for the bus. It is a breezy day, and at times, the wind picks up speed during the walk.

Every once in awhile the woman teaches arts and crafts at a school. In the morning, she helps organize the art supplies, and in the afternoon, she teaches a group of students an art project.

She arrives at the school and goes into the art room. She helps organize the art supplies by placing the markers, crayons, and colored pencils in their appropriate storage containers. The small canisters of paint that have been dispersed throughout the room are gathered together and placed in one area on the counter.  A pile of the students’ pictures from a completed project are displayed on the walls around the room. She also helps clear off and clean the tables.

For lunch, the school is having an ice cream social to celebrate April 1^st. They have set-up a long row of lunch tables outside for a buffet. A few of the teachers grill hamburgers and hot dogs. The students stand in line to wait for a hamburger or hotdog. They then walk through the line to add lettuce, tomato, their choice of condiments, a bag of chips, and something to drink.

The periodic gusts of wind continue to be a factor. To help address the situation, the teachers have placed rocks to help hold down the plates, napkins, and other items that are getting blown away from the wind.

After the students have made their plate of food, they sit down at one of the additional tables that have been set-up outside. After they finish their lunch, they can go to another set of tables to make their own ice cream sundae. There are tubs of different flavors of ice cream, bottles of syrup, cans of whipped cream, sprinkles, and maraschino cherries.

Throughout the lunch, the teachers and students find themselves chasing after their empty cups and plates as the wind has a tendency to blow them away if left unattended. The festive banner in honor of the occasion that has been tied around two trees has become loose and is flapping in the wind.

After lunch, the woman meets with the group of students in the art room, and says, “Did everyone bring in a rock to paint?”

The students are eager to show her the rocks they have brought in for the two-week project. This week they are scheduled to paint the rocks white with spray paint, and set them outside to dry. The following week they will paint them.

They go outside to spray paint the rocks. A few tables have been set-up, and they cover them with newspapers. Once again the wind becomes a factor, blowing away the papers that have been set on top of the table. The students find some rocks and place them on the table to hold the papers in place.

A few of the students begin spray painting their rocks, but the periodic gusts of wind, quickly make the activity challenging. The vapors of paint are getting blown into the wind. The woman realizes it is too windy to paint the rocks, and says, “It is too windy to paint the rocks. We can paint them next week. Instead, we can make bowls out of clay.” 

She takes some pieces of clay out from one of her bags of supplies. She also calls one of the other art teachers and asks her if she can bring out some additional clay they keep stored in one of the closets in the art room. 

The students spend the remainder of the class molding their bowls out of the clay. Once they are finished, they bring them into the art room and place them near the kiln that will be used to harden the clay. They place their rocks in their personalized shoe boxes they use to hold their supplies.

At the end of the day, the woman leaves to return home. It looks like it is about to rain. She keeps an umbrella in a locker that has been provided to her to help her store some of her art supplies, and decides to take it with her. On the bus ride home, it begins to rain and she is glad that she has the umbrella.

Once the bus reaches her stop, she leaves and once again is faced with the gusty wind. The walk home is nearly one mile. For the first part of the walk home, she holds the umbrella out in front of her to help protect her from the wind and rain. As she turns a corner, the wind is now blowing in another direction, and with each gust, it turns her umbrella inside out. She is constantly pulling it back into shape and trying to hold it in place with her hand gripped on top of it. 

She stops at a nearby office building with a covered area for parked cars and decides to wait for a few minutes until the wind dies down. Once the weather clears a bit, she decides to continue the walk home. The wind is still gusty, but not quite as strong.

She makes it home, and turns on the TV. She watches the news and listens to the newscaster’s report of the weather, “We had a windy day here. The wind speed was up to 12 miles per hour in some areas. A tornado warning was also issued. We have some footage from a tree that was torn down. The wind storm will continue through the night, but should clear by mid-morning.”

Throughout the night the wind howls at times. When she goes outside the next morning, she spends a few minutes clearing out the debris and leaves that have been blown onto her pathway, reminders from the night’s storm. It’s a beautiful day, the calm after the storm, but she can’t help reflecting about the activities from the day before. The walk to the school, the ice cream social, trying to paint the rocks, and the walk home on a very windy day.