Letter to Wright from Between Gusts

A version of this piece first appears in “The Lake.”

Dear Tami: The wind here speaks an undiscovered language: 

Diffident, it lurks in the background, stuttering, fingering 

everything, shifting directions, mocking us, barely noticeable 

until it gets pissed off and BLOWS! Then, shit happens. Pickle 

jars appear in purses. Love notes remain unwritten. Shingles 

flap across the lawn, and idiots are elected to office (nothing new, 

I know). When I was a kid, I marveled at those fortunates who 

lived under the same roof for years, for decades, entire lives, while 

my family rolled around the globe, collecting vaccination scars

like postcards or nesting dolls. How interesting, I thought then, 

to know and be known, to avoid the perpetual newcomer’s 

path. Having shared this house with my wife and various dogs, 

birds, rodents, insects, and arachnids for thirty-three years, I now

know this — home is not a stationary edifice. No cornerstone 

defines it any better than fog rubbing the juniper’s tired back, 

or courting mayflies announcing warmth’s arrival in their brief 

pre-death interludes. Desire is a feckless mistress; after obtaining 

the prize, we miss the abandoned and wonder what might have 

been. When you arrive at your new town, remember this: No one 

is stranger to you than yourself. I speak from experience, having 

absorbed differences at one end only to watch them emerge 

hand-in-hand at the other, like newborn twins or nearly forgotten 

reminders of an uncle’s kindness in a year of typhoons and sharp 

replies and rebuilt lives. Home is a smile, a lover’s sleepy touch 

at 3 a.m., or the secret knock between childhood friends reunited 

after decades. It lives in soft tissue, not steel, and breathes water 

and air, flame and soil, and everything between. But it can’t exist 

without your mind and body lugging it around. I would like to 

tell you what the wind is saying, but it’s singing different tunes

these days, and my translation skills begin and end in that still

place between gusts, floating in the twilit air like so many empty 

pockets. These are the only words I have. Not much to hang a hat 

on, and I apologize for my shortcomings and inability to expound 

with clarity. I speak in poetry but mean well. May your moons

be bright and your winds wild yet gentle, even if you can’t fathom

their meaning. I’ll keep trying if you will. All the best, Bob.