Part 2: Realization
I believe it was the fall of my seventh grade year that I first noticed the wind. I hadn’t been living in my upstairs bedroom long, and I was still getting used to hearing squirrels scamper across the roof as I attempted to sleep in on Saturday morning. But I distinctly remember waking up one morning — a school morning — and hearing the wind blow through the trees outside my window. Perhaps it was the idea that fall was on its way. Perhaps it was a product of the murky waters of adolescence wreaking havoc on my fragile mind. Perhaps there was another message in that sound. Either way, for reasons unknown to me, that sound filled me with a feeling I didn’t quite understand.
Over the next several years I attempted to make sense of this feeling. My first explanation was that fall was coming, and after fall came winter with both my birthday and Christmas to look forward to. Next came the idea of the new beginnings that fall brought. But these ideas all depended on the season of fall.
The summer between high school and college was difficult for me. My high school graduation was at the tail end of May, and Furman didn’t start until Labor Day. I had tried, twice, to get a job without success. Situations with my girlfriend of six months had escalated to an immature level, and both my parents advised me to end the relationship now before physical distance ended it for me. My life was dominated by one question that my parents and even my brother saw before I did: I’m not supposed to be here; why am I still here?
My readings that summer certainly helped matters. First came Eragon by Christopher Paolini, a story about a farm boy who finds a dragon egg and gets whisked into high adventure and a destiny that is many times bigger than himself. Last came a fanfic (which shall remain nameless) where the main character discovers his true identity and the metamorphosis that it entails and gets whisked into high adventure and a destiny that is many times bigger than himself. I know, I eat this stuff like it’s candy. Sandwiched between the two was At the Back of the North Wind by George MacDonald, the story of a boy who is befriended by the North Wind, sees the land behind the wind, and is forever changed by it.
About two weeks before I left home to set out on my own, an uncharacteristic late summer cold front swept through Charleston. It brought the temperatures down from the unbearable 90s to the wonderful 70s. And with it came the wind. The pieces weren’t falling into place yet, but this time I steeled my resolve and swore to get to the bottom of the peculiar feelings the North Wind brought me. My family decided to spend the evening at the beach to celebrate the weather. Not being much of a swimsuit person, I spent the evening in one of the beach chairs and wrote this:
Alright, what’s happening to me? I feel like this every year when the weather gets cool. Does it happen to everyone? Can’t be. Then we wouldn’t be hearing about ‘Seasonal Depression’ when the days get shorter. I like short days and long nights. I like cool, cloudy days with a breeze blowing. It feels… it’s so hard to describe! It’s like a change that’s about to take place. Something growing inside me that’s about to be let out. Something wonderful, something I want to happen… but what?[...] Am I about to go on an adventure? Or what would happen if I grew a tail? What kind of a tail would it be? Probably a fox tail. And kitsune have some pretty [elite] abilities anyway.
Something is going to happen… something is going to happen… My whole life feels like something is going to happen. But what?!
The first key was the books: the feeling I got from the wind was the same feeling I felt when I read the passages describing the protagonist’s destiny. Those pivotal conversations where the farm boy discovers he has a connection to his dragon, where the teenager discovers the secret of what he is turning into, resonated with me. Likewise, the sound of the wind in the trees, the feel of the wind across my face, brought up the same feelings of… what? No time to think about it; it’s time to leave for college.
Two weeks into my stay at Furman, the feelings returned with greater force. Now, however, I had a clue. I had a feeling, and it was called anticipation. I knew that I was waiting for something. When I read about the strange things happening to the characters in the stories, I wanted to know what would happen because of those things. The problem was, those stories had an ending. I could always find out what happened in those stories, but I couldn’t look ahead or skip pages in my story. I had to live it out, one day at a time, waiting for something when I didn’t even know what it was.
With that anticipation came longing. Again, I didn’t quite know what I was longing for, but I knew it was something I wanted. When the farm boy discovers his dragon, when the teenager completes his metamorphosis, when the child discovers the land at the back of the north wind, they are made complete, or at least more complete than when they started. The place they are going, whether it is a physical place or a metaphorical place, makes them more themselves. The fanfic said it best when one of the characters was explaining the protagonist’s metamorphosis to him: “It’s the outside changing to match what’s on the inside.” Deep inside myself, I knew that whatever place I was going to or whatever change would happen to me would make me more of who I truly was. To use the cliche, I was finding my destiny.
The final piece of the puzzle came at the only Campus Outreach meeting I have ever attended. Like nearly every sermon I’ve heard, I don’t remember the topic, but a few key phrases struck home to me. The pastor mentioned that we can’t desire too much of God since God is the creator of life as well as life itself. He also mentioned a few passages from The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis, the last book in the Narnia series. And it clicked.
The land at the back of the north wind was the same land of freedom I had glimpsed through my middle-school cartoons. It was the same place, viewed from two different angles: one primarily secular, one primarily religious. One land offered me perfect freedom, the other offered perfect fellowship with my God. Tying the two together was Lewis’ vision of heaven laid out in The Last Battle. It is a place where the adventures are endless and everything is so real that this world seems like a shadow or a dream in comparison to the reality that it offers. And in that place is the God that created me, sustains me, and is the source of my life; it is only natural that I would be drawn to Him, long to be with Him, and anticipate the day it happens.
And the wind? I still haven’t answered that question. The best answer I can give now is that what I hear in the wind is the same thing some people see in a panoramic natural view, hear in a piece of beautiful music, or see in a wonderful painting: a glimpse of one’s true home. It is simply the way God has chosen to speak to me — or perhaps the way God has chosen for me to hear Him. And all this explanation doesn’t mean my search is over. I have a direction; I still need to get there.