“What is wind?”
A question like that from a child signals the emergence of something interesting and promising. A new sensitivity to the invisible has formed: seeing the wind’s effect on waving branches and drifting clouds, hearing the jangling chimes, and feeling the breeze across our faces. A curious new person, noticing all of this, is more than justified in asking, “Well, what is it then? Why can’t I see it?”
The answer—that the air isn’t empty but full, packed with microscopic particles that move in response to many variables—is not just an answer but an initiation. It ushers a child into a world where invisibility doesn’t mean vacancy. The air that surrounds them is thick with “stuff” that shifts and moves, leaps and blows. The world, they learn, is ambient.
