On a still fall evening, a woman in a long, loose dress emerged from her house on a tree-lined street. She closed the door softly, walked down the porch stairs, and crossed the street to the mailbox. 

There was nothing remarkable about her, and nothing remarkable about the street full of boxes or the murmuring people living their simple, complex lives inside them. The streetlights flickered, a descant to the melody of TV screens glimmering behind shaded windows. 

Outside, nothing stirred. No cats prowled. No dogs barked. No cars moved down the street. For one lone minute, it was just the woman and the world. A pause. A single catch of breath. 

The woman waited. For nothing in particular. It was just a waiting kind of moment, full of memory and anticipation, like she’d waited there before, and like something was coming.

Leaves stirred on the next street down, and the woman turned to watch the warm wind come, tree by tree, stirring one to life before breathing into the next, the Wind herself tending each brave branch, honoring the leaves lost and those preparing to fall. 

The wind arrived at the woman’s feet and bowed to her, serious and grave, before she lifted her eyes with a wink and skittered and flew and danced and spun around and through and past her. 

The woman’s hair waved to the wind, let loose with gravity suspended, and her dress fluttered and snapped like a wild thing set free.

The woman breathed.

In.

And out.

Living air filling her lungs and rushing from it.

Again.

And one more time.

And then the moment passed.

The wind kissed the woman good-bye, gently on the cheek, like a mama laying her baby to sleep, and the woman watched her steal away, into the darkening night.

On a still fall evening, a woman in a long, loose dress gathered her mail and herself, crossed the street, and went home. There was nothing remarkable about her.

Except for an extra spark of magic gifted by the wind. 

………..

In case you need a measure of magic today, friends, this is for you. Be on the lookout. The wind is on the way. ❤️