I remember watching the willow trees bend from my window as a child. I was young, I was small, I was
scared. The wind shook their feeble branches like I knew it would shake me if I left my
warm bed. I watched these trees move and felt more like the shadows of their branches that fell on the
pavement below than the living, breathing thing above.
I would hide under the piano whenever the wind picked up. Thunderstorms were the worst. The piano seemed so much heavier when the lightning was flickering. I could almost feel it move above me, like the wind, like the willows in the breeze.
Now I am different. I revel in the chaos of storms and pianos are my enemies. I am the branch, not the shadow. Sometimes, though, as I lie in my warm bed and think of my childhood, I become that small, scared girl. Sometimes, I even miss her.