" THE WEATHER" man

In the course of my life, I,  like most people, have encountered many kinds of personalities, and perhaps some people will identify with the ones I portray. There are elements of real experience in the telling, but also various alterations and embellishments... and so it is with this is one I shall refer to as

 "THE WEATHER" MAN...    RLR

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     In all my life, I have known people I have loved, and others I didn't like at all, but I always knew something about them as a person. I have met people I liked or didn't feel comfortable with on the first meeting, but I always knew why. There was always some kind of conversation, and something said that caused me not to like them, or to like them, and want to see them and get to know them better. But there are some who have just left me curious...

     There is this person that I encountered throughout many years of my life, one who, I'm sure, knows people I know, but who has been more like weather than a person... except that weather is controlled by factors in nature and not be conscious thought. Weather is predictable sometimes, but most often, it’s not, though it has patterns that are recognizeable. This person was always unpredictable, yet there was a pattern to the weather they created. When he spoke to me at all, it was like trying to make sence of voices in the wind. He seemed to be saying something, but in the end, they are just the sounds of the wind, or a crashing like thunder... and later on I'd notice the damage the wind had caused. ( *perhaps more than once, but usually they would be like a gust of wind and passing showers... )

     Storms have names sometimes, and they have personalities too. Hurricanes for instance. You cannot speak to a storm. It doesn't listen. It just does what it does. You can track it, yet not really know where it's going and what it will do. You can never really get to know a storm. You can only experience it. Sometimes a storm will come up totally out of the blue and do great damage. There's no way to prepare for it. You might see clouds forming in the distance, but think it is just a raincloud only to find it is creating a tornado and hail when it suddenly approaches... or you might be indoors and not see any sign of it until it's right there. Sometimes you see it coming, and don't have time to do anything about it but try to seek a safe place. But sometimes you can be stand outdoors enjoying the beauty of a warm summer's day, thinking of how nice it might be to see a rainbow, see a cloud in the distance while the sun is still shining where you are, and get hit with a bolt out of the blue. Nature is like that... but it just does what it does. It doesn't do it intentionally to harm anyone.

     People make conscious decisions. There are those who act and speak without thinking, yes, but there is always a conscious intention behind it. If someone speaks nicely to you, they have an intention to do something nice. If they yell at you, they have the intention to do harm, even if they really aren't mad at you personally. You will be the one hit by their thunderbolt, and suffer the consequences (and so will they ) and they didn't have to do that.

     Throughout my life, I have spoken nicely to people I didn't know, only to have them act nasty to me. I will never know why they did that, but it's usually not someone I see again... or, sometimes, it's someone I get to know and I ask them, or get to know something about them their lives, so I can figure it out... or someone I know knows them and tells me some things about them so I understand to some degree. Sometimes I see them acting like that every time I encounter them, and it's usually brief, and I can see that they are just like that. I don't need to know them to see the way they are. It shows... even if I never know why they are like that. I don't take it personally because they are always like that... or I'm not likely to see them again anyway.

 But this person was not really like a person I met in passing, . I knew who they were. At least what they looked like and their name... the rest is a fragmented story, and that's about it.

     Since I really never got to know this person, and they really don’t seem like a person to me, from here on I will refer to them as IT… a weather condition. … I never got to know IT. IT never got to know me… There were times when the sun seemed to shine, but mostly there were unsettled atmospheric conditions  that arose from time to time… like lightning in fog or some other strange occurrence.

Sometimes a brief encounter seemed pleasant at first, then IT spoke like the wind saying things that made no sence. Then, usually with a bit of a gust, IT was gone. Time would pass and it would happen again. IT wasn’t just passing by without notice.  There were actual encounters... but it was akin to having a whirlwind coming at me, swirling and catching me up in it for a moment, and sometimes shoving me into a wall or something, and then IT was gone again.

     I learned where this storm originated, but I couldn't contact it. IT, this person, wasn't there, or didn't respond, or spoke like voices in the wind. There was no conversation. I couldn't speak to IT. Like a storm, IT didn't care what I had to say. IT just did what IT did, and was gone again.

     I can't say I know this person, any more than one can know a storm... but I experienced IT.

IT seemed to have targeted me on numerous occassions, including on the first encounter many years ago. IT had come up to me (... and that set off a series of strange weather conditions that continued for years.) At other times IT seemed to be coming toward me, and then vanished. Suddenly IT was appearing, as if from out of nowhere, and trying to make it seem like it wasn't planned, though it was. For a time IT had actually avoided me... intentionally, but I didn't take it personally. Weather is what weather is...

     Like on a file in some folder at the weather bureau, IT has a phone number, and because this kind of thing had been going on for so long,  I opted to call. I thought it would be better to have an actual conversation than to continue this strange series of whatever this was.. I left a couple of messeges.

      When IT finally called me back, IT became VERY personal. It knew who It was speaking to, and identified ITself by name.I tried to speak, and make what I had to say as clear as possible, but IT kept twisting my words and intentions around and throwing them back at me  in a highly contemptuous manner. Its words were like lightning bolts that seared me to the core, and I never fully recovered this experience.
     

      I had not gone up to IT...  IT had come up to me, passed a few words over the years, did what it did and moved on... then THIS!
     

     After that, I saw IT here and there, and again it was like the wind speaking... or the crashing of thunder and IT would be gone again. Time would pass. It would happen again... with IT coming to where I was... as if by mere coincidence, again.

     It's like being stalked by a storm … and WHY? I have no desire to  risk being hit by lightning again. IT's verbal assaults were raging.  As with a storm, you can't ask it why it did that. It never says anything. It just vents and leaves. It doesn't care what you have to say... it just does what it does. There is no reasoning with it. Yet, within this storm there is a person. There is intention.

     A person can speak like a warm breeze on a summer's day, or they can shout and spew venom. They can speak to and treat treat you nicely or badly. This is no accident. This isn't just nature doing what it does.

I have learned that when I seem IT coming, to remain calm, and let IT pass... I have come to see that whoever this person is, their likes and dislikes, their life story, is something I will, more than likely, never really know. But I have experienced them...as an indifferent breeze or a cold brisk wind ... once or twice as a gentle warm breeze... and finally, like a STORM... But like the weather, IT comes and goes. I never know when. It's impossible to really like or dislike IT because It changes all the time...but I can like or dislike what it DOES..

      Yes, to me, IT not a person, though I know they are... to me IT is as the weather... (Though this has intent, and can make choices as to the direction of the weather and the kind of weather they will create )… like a Hurricane, whose eye is on me from time to time, and I'd venture to say, based on numerous past experiences, IT will continue to do what IT does ... whatever it does... And as with the weather,  I take comfort in knowing that, this too shall pass...