Wind

Holy cats do I hate the wind!! It has been gusting and buffeting here on and off for weeks. I’d rather it be downright freezing than blowing the kids’ sandbox toys all over creation.

It’s probably the only weather condition that truly has an effect on my mood. It just really puts me on edge and makes me super crabby. It takes the joy out of driving for me as it blows even my large SUV all over the road and whistles through the windows. It screws up my hair. It blows The Boy’s papers from school out of my hands. It makes it entirely unpleasant for me to be outside. It just drives me crazy.

And since we live one row of houses away from hundreds of acres of farm and ranch land, the dust is just unbelievable. When it really gets blowing out here I can have just dusted (assuming that I dusted that is) and within a day it will look as if I didn’t dust at all. It makes the house smell just a bit gritty, if that’s possible, because I can’t open the windows.

The only redeeming aspect it has really is that it blows massive amounts of tumbleweeds all over the place. They collect against old barb wire fences and against utility buildings. They wrap themselves around fire hydrants and car tires. I’ve always thought that tumbleweeds were cool and when the wind is crazy, it allows me to really see them instead of just looking past or driving over them. Tumbleweeds are an odd homage to the image I’d like to create in my own life. They stay rooted, grounded, until they reach maturity. And then they just let go of their roots and fly away, ready to plant seeds along their way wherever they may end up.

Although I gotta say that if I’m going to let go of my roots and go where the wind takes me, I’d much rather be sitting in a plush plane in first class rather than rolling along the ground trying to make it through traffic without getting squished.

But ridiculously reaching metaphors aside, I just really, really hate the wind.