A Fan

There is a simple machine in our house that gives me more happiness than is really logical or reasonable. Most of the year, it lives in the attic, waiting for the summer when the house warms up and we open the windows to let the breeze in (this is the only air conditioning system we need in Ireland). To help encourage that summer breeze inside, we take down the fan from storage and turn it on. I enjoy turning on the fan more than I can sensibly explain to you. I guess you could say I’m a fan of it. The sound of the motor and spinning blades resonates with something deep inside of me, which is strange, I know, but the breeze dusts off long-past memories of summer days and the places I used to spend them. In that mental swirl there arises an old and comfortable happiness, intangible but very real, and I can’t help but smile. 

I remember as a child, lying on the floor in the heat of Alabama, taking turns with my brother speaking into the back of the fan and laughing endlessly at how it changed our voices. If you’ve never tried that, you should. I remember lazily looking up at the ceiling fans on the porch, trying to track their blades and basking in the comfort they provided. I remember the noisy window unit air conditioner fan upstairs in the house my wife and I lived in when we were newly married. It clattered away all night, keeping us cool, and I grew to love the noise of it along with the rest of that crooked, leaky house, because of the life we made there, together. Maybe these are some of the reasons I love the sound of a fan so much more than the fan itself logically, reasonably deserves. After all, there’s a lot more to life and living than logic and reason alone. The longer we live on this earth, the longer the list becomes of things that are entangled with our experiences and memories, things that grow to mean more to us than the simple sum of their physical parts would suggest. Maybe that’s because everything about this world, and our life in it, and our own selves, means more than the simple sum of physical parts would suggest. God made life rich and deep, and I’m a fan of it.

I’m sure I’m not alone. Are there things that resonate this way with you?