Santa Ana

I woke up this morning and knew instantly that the Santa Ana winds are reaching their peak. My eyes were already tired, the state of my nostrils and throat doesn't bear description, I'm running out of moisturizer, and my hair -- light and wispy on a good day -- stood straight up in the air when I tried to comb it in the morning (with a wooden comb, no less!).

These hot desert winds aggravate me in ways they don't when I'm in the desert itself. Yeah, I don't like the winds tugging at my hair (I live in bandanas when camping, therefore) but the rest of the environment makes me feel peaceful and calm and alive. But these winds... it's like someone stripped out all the negative aspects of desert life, wrapped it in an ion storm, and sent it our way. It's sure to rile me up and tire me out, leaving me feeling like I spent all day hiking in the sun without enough water.

Ayurveda would claim that this hot dryness was aggravating my vata and pitta natures. Sometimes I wonder about what I did to deserve this particularly contradictory constitution. Vata is cold and dry, and soothed by the warm and wet. Pitta, on the other hand, is hot and moist, soothed by the dry and cool. (I usually end up splitting the difference in favor of the cool and moist -- i.e. Oregon.) So things like the dry, electric Santa Ana stirs up the vata, making me edgy and twitchy and anxious and dry, while simultaneously the heat makes the pitta increase, meaning crankiness and irritability.

It's a wonder I haven't burst into flames like a bunch of dry twigs!

Lots of cool drinks, yoga, meditation and knitting seem called for this weekend, don't they?

(I believe the winds are getting to other people too. Why else would a few of my co-workers decide that today was a great time to install a remote-controlled whoopee cushion in another person's office? (Alas, they didn't hide it well enough and he found it. Dang.))

Comments

[yami]

Yeah, they're definitely getting to me too - v. grumpy and complainy today. I keep telling myself they've predicted an El Nino for the winter, so it'll all be okay in a few weeks...

[DM]

That is one thing I don't miss about Southern California. In Northern California, we had winds, but they were never as severe as what I encountered in the Southland. I was always amazed with the ability of my fellow Southlanders to not look worried at all, when the Santa Anas were swirling around, threatening to uproot trees and anything else in the way. Nutty!

[Rana]

Especially the palm trees. Those fronds always freak me out when there's a wind in them -- I know I would not be happy at all if one of those prickly, heavy things fell on my head!

So far our Santa Ana is more hot and dry than swirly (fingers crossed).

[yami]

Ah, swirly is nice! Then at least you know there's a wind around and have something to blame bad moods on. This stealth ionization thing is just wrong.

[Rana]

I'll grant you that -- I thought for days that I was getting a cold until I figured it out. Annoying.

[Outer Life]

A word of caution: Don't ever get your hair cut during Santa Anas. Today, I walked to the barber's, my hair blowing around in the winds. By the time I got there, my scalp crawling with static-charged hair, I ordered him to cut it all off. Thankfully he knows me well and talked me off the ledge.

[Rana]

Yeah, that would be bad -- and I can see the temptation. Normally my hair is either well-behaved or ignorable, but in dry, staticky winds it is like having a panicked sea anemone on my head. As I said, bandanas are my friends!

[meanr regression]

if only more weather conditions inspired people to use remote controlled woopie cushons...

[Rana]

Hee. (I was wondering when someone would get around to commenting on that!)