65 Comments
User's avatar
Jan Elisabeth's avatar

We were at the Breton coast last week and had a day of high winds after a stormy night -- incredibly exhilarating after the first shock and my body's initial resistance -- and love how you've captured it.

rebecca hooper's avatar

ooh that sounds quite exciting!! x

Moggin Boggin's Almanac's avatar

The wind has always scared and enchanted me in equal measure…I loved every line of this ♥️

rebecca hooper's avatar

Thank you so much, Kaeli!

Yasmin Chopin's avatar

Me too. The power of it.

Kimberly Warner's avatar

And that you did Rebecca! And oh so immediately and moving. I could feel my own body shifting in the wildness even with your words. I think I have a new funeral request, to be torn apart by fierce gales and dispersed into the chaos.

I love this! “…because sometimes this is really what a body needs, isn’t it—to be pushed outside of itself, or perhaps back into itself.”

rebecca hooper's avatar

Ahh thank you Kimberly! 🩵 I'm with you on the funeral request... dispersed into the chaos seems like a good way to go...

Julia Skinner's avatar

This is an astonishing piece of writing that brings alive wind sand sea and a routine dog walk from the exceptionally talented @rebecca hooper.

rebecca hooper's avatar

🩵 thank you for such a lovely comment, Julia!

Tove Cecilie Fasting's avatar

What a great tale of how you experience the gale. It reminded me of when I lived on a tiny island off the coast if Norway. Sometimes you could lean into the wind. Then there was the loud sound of the ocean, I you had been in a city you’d believe it was from a busy highway. Weather like this makes you feel so alive.

rebecca hooper's avatar

Oh doesn't it just! It wakes the senses up.

Jerry's avatar

A walk in bad weather shakes the cobwebs out of the senses and makes fresh space for new appreciations.

Rona Maynard's avatar

You, the wind, the gull and magnus—a wild, beautiful dance to pull me into morning.

rebecca hooper's avatar

💃 thank you Rona!

Laura's Night Stack's avatar

What a marvelous, gusting, visceral ride. Great writing. I feel (happily) windblown.

rebecca hooper's avatar

Thanks so much, Laura!

Emily Charlotte Powell's avatar

You have perfectly captured the magic of the wind and sent your message in a bottle from your island in the north, held between two seas, to my southern woods and river paths - and it is most gratefully received. Much love x

rebecca hooper's avatar

Oh I love to think of this wild bottle reaching your beautiful southern woodland 💚 thank you Emily!!

Ana Daksina's avatar

This classifies as prose poetry! Beautifully written 👌

rebecca hooper's avatar

❤️ thank you!

Yasmin Chopin's avatar

I agree.

Linda Clark's avatar

This is wonderful writing! Full of sensation. How I love the quick sketch of Magnus.

rebecca hooper's avatar

Haha thank you Linda! 🐶

Nina Simperi's avatar

I'm not a friend of the wind, but this helps me remember how it is to dance with the elements. How they make us move differently, notice different things, and ultimately feel different - new in some way.

rebecca hooper's avatar

'Dance with the elements' is exactly the right phrase, Nina! x

Mary Beth Rew Hicks's avatar

I, too, am jealous of the cold plungers... recipe for instant migraine in this body. But I do love a windy walk. The sky burial of the gull in this essay was particularly moving.

rebecca hooper's avatar

'Sky burial' - oh that's a poem of a phrase. And same, migraine, palpitations... this body doesn't do shock 😅

Simone Senisin's avatar

Wild and magic 🌊🐾💙

rebecca hooper's avatar

Thank you! 🩵

David Kirkby's avatar

Gorgeous, dear Rebecca.

Your "quick and messy sketch of Magnus in the wind" (looking a lot like a windblown fox) made me laugh out loud! I don't have as much fur/hair, but I have sure felt like he looks....

We have dead birds around our house too, from time to time. I stopped burying them a few years ago. I just move them down near the river bank, where the water glitters and the Water Dragon lizards scavenge for food.

So when I saw you mention the Herring Gull, I had an immediate connection.

Best Wishes - Dave

rebecca hooper's avatar

Oh how I'd love to see a water dragon scavenging on the shores of a river. What a place you call home, Dave!

Whilst Out Walking's avatar

Splendid - you are a great recorder of believable places.

rebecca hooper's avatar

This means a lot, thank you!