WHOOSH!!

*photo by Wormtown Medic

Our house is located on a quiet, dead end street. If you go to the end of the street and cut through the woods, you will come out onto a high school campus. The same high school I attended, in fact.

On this campus is a windmill.

I love this windmill. We can see it from our house, soaring up over our street like a mighty protector. In fact, when we are out and coming home, the Mermaid always knows which way to go because she can see the windmill. When we first moved in, I would wake up and see it out my bedroom window, and the way it moved made me think it was waving good morning to me. Silly, I know.

Most of the time it is really quiet, but on really windy days or on rainy days, it makes a great WHOOSH sound as it rotates. I don't find that sound annoying in the least; in fact, I find it rather comforting. It sounds like a womb, with the mother's heart beating through.

The only time I found it annoying was right after we lost Kalei. I was still carrying him, laying on my bed, and the sound of the windmill reminded me of the sounds we had heard from my midwife's doppler: the great WHOOSH of my heartbeat and vascular system and no tiny bumpbump of a baby heartbeat.

We are also close to two schools, two parks, and three daycares. So, at any given time when you step outside onto my deck, you can clearly hear children playing and laughing and the sound of a bat hitting a ball. WHACK! This is my favorite sound, because it is always followed by people cheering.

My favorite days are when all these sounds come together. The WHOOSH of the windmill provides a nice, relaxing background to the laughter and cheering, the WHACK of the bat on ball. On these days, I love to sit out on the deck with a book while the girls run around in the yard, adding their own laughter to the mix. The perfect sounds of home.

How often do we slow down enough to appreciate all the little things around us, like the sounds we hear? There have been many times that I've been so busy and rushed, unable to appreciate the small gifts that were all around me.

At this point in my life, I am more still, more quiet and relaxed than usual. And I love it.

WHOOSH!!