Sanity, gone with the wind

Kahil Gibran had it right when he said, “For what is it to die, but to stand in the sun and melt into the wind?” Only, I don't think he meant it in quite the same way I mean it.

It's windy and I'm moody. Why?

Bob Dylan thinks the answer is blowing in the wind, I beg to differ. It's all quite scientific actually. There is a logical albeit completely unsatisfying reason for the madness in the wind. Ions. Or atoms. Or charged molecules. Now without getting too much into the science of it, and by too much I mean not really at all, it has something to do with the friction of these ions, negative and positive (which as it happens, is not so positive a word in this case). Essentially, it messes with our bodies and our moods.

The Santa Ana winds for example, which blow through the desert like the devil, are extremely dry and powerful, violent and unpredictable. According to Joan Didion, it's the wind that shows us how close to the edge we are.

I've never experienced this legendary wind, though I've read about it in literature, old and new, and I've heard it referred to in music and film, and as dangerously damaging as it sounds, I'd like to, at least once, experience the sheer force of it.

It kindles fires; burning hills, burning passions.

The wind encircles you, entwines itself around and through you, enveloping you. Merciless in it's scorching speed, it weaves around shop corners and parks.
Tempestuous, boisterous, wild and bombastic. Meandering.

It has to be said that I truly, truly detest the wind. Messing up perfectly good hair is not the only thing which disturbs and agitates me, although, yes, it is a definite factor.

I once knew a girl who would refuse to go to school if it was windy. I was never that extreme, but I get it.
I'd rather be a-soaking in the rain or dancing in the gentle pearly snow; wind is the element that would keep me indoors.

Myth has it that suicide and homicide rates reach all time highs during the Santa Ana winds, which reminds me of something else my favourite journalist, Joan Didion, wrote. “The season of suicide and divorce and prickly dread, wherever the wind blows.”

Wind is quite literally my worst nightmare, what hell would be like if hell existed.
Bad winds cause a plethora of physical torments such as headaches (give me Chinese water torture before a headache any day!), nausea (see previous bracketed comment), fatigue (see also: lazy, like a ceiling fan slowly, lethargically turning), asthma, water retention and a slower reaction time. And that's just the physical aspects...
Emotional, nervous, irritated, listless, insecure? Apathetic, anxious, depressed? Blame it on the wind.

Wind provokes me, it jeers as it wisps past in a hurry. I claim temporary insanity. All bets are off.

Pablo Picasso once said that the older you get the stronger the wind gets, and that it's always in your face. Now that I believe.