I've been trying to remember where I got this windchime. I'm pretty sure it was given to me by a friend who was getting ready to have a garage sale, but I can't recall who it was. I do know that for the past several years, it hung on the front porch of my house in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. Since the porch was screened in and we didn't have heavy winds very often there, except for passing thunderstorms, I rarely heard the chimes (couldn't even tell you what they sounded like), and for the last few years I lived there, I spent very little time on the porch.
When I went back to salvage my house after the hurricane, this windchime was therefore not exactly at the top of my list of things to look for. One day, as we were leaving, on the spur of the moment I asked the person who was helping me that day to reach up and grab the windchime (it had been above the water line.) It traveled cross-country on the back floor of my car, underneath a portion of my salvaged CD collection (the Christmas CDs I was listening to on the way).
After I got settled in to my cottage by the creek, the windchime made its way to my new back porch, which is what I use as the main entrance. Everyday, when I go in and out of my house, the chimes are there to greet me. Among the wonderful discoveries I've made here is how breezy it is in the springtime where I'm living, between the Coastal mountain range and the Cascades, about an hour east of the Pacific Ocean. So the windchime is tinkling constantly nowadays, and I can hear it from wherever I am in the house. It's actually got a sweet, mellow, alto voice. Very peaceful, very reassuring, very much alive and vibrant.
Wind chimes are wonderful. I have one lot by the back door, and some I made myself (out of old plumbing pipes) in the wood.
When it snows, which is admittedly very rare in the UK, and there's a bit of a breeze, it's like walking through the wardrobe into Narnia.
Posted by: Camy | Thursday, May 11, 2006 at 03:45 PM
Camy, I hadn't thought of this until just now when I read your comment. At this point in my life, it's like I'm walking through a doorway into another dimension, almost a whole new life, and the windchime is like a tangible symbol of that, marking the passage and welcoming me home. Thanks. :)
Posted by: Kitty | Saturday, May 13, 2006 at 01:09 AM