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What the Chamber of Commerce Won’t Tell You
by Andrew Kilikauskas
I need a beer. No, I need two beers and a Xanax. The dust in the air is so thick that I can’t see the house across the street. The entire valley is
choked with sand and dust. I don’t feel any better--the anxiety just won’t abate. I feel the need to move, but running or cycling outdoors is unthinkable, an exercise in masochism. I can’t go outside so
I pace the house like a caged animal instead. How long will the wind continue to howl? Normally the wind blows for a day or two, exceptionally for three days. This particular wind storm is going on
nearly eight days now.
Deserts have distinctive features--the vast expanses of barren rocks and sand, the sparse vegetation, the clear skies dominated by the sun. There’s another element of
deserts, an unseen element, the element of wind. Winds are ubiquitous in deserts all over the world. They blow unimpeded over the landscapes shaping them by moving sand and eroding rocks. They also shape
the plants and animals and affect the people that choose to live in these areas. Hot, dry winds distress people and alter their moods. Like the full moon, desert winds are believed to lead to increases
in angry and violent behavior.
Here in Southern California, in the edge of the Mojave Desert that butts up against the Sierra Nevada Mountains, I’m still in my house my skin itching with anxiety.
Outside the wind is still blowing--not just blowing but howling. Trees and bushes are bent over and the air is filled with blowing sand and dust. Blowing through the wrought iron patio railing the wind
creates a low moaning sound that combines with the higher pitched whistling through the bamboo fence around the koi pond to create a grating cacophony.
In Southern Europe there are the siroccos,
the hot winds from the Sahara desert that bring headaches and sleeping problems. In Southern California there are the Santa Anas often more colorfully referred to as devil winds. These hot dry winds bring fires that frequently char the mountain slopes that they descend. West Africa features the harmattan. Afganistan has the bist roz. In North Africa, Libya and Tunis have the ghibli another hot dry wind that blows from the Sahara to the south and brings so much dust and sand that normal life is hardly possible. In Egypt the khamsin is considered a plague. The far off outpost of Australia has the brickfielders.
The Arabian Desert and the surrounding countries of Israel, Jordan and Syria have the simoom or “poison winds.” All of these exotic names refer to winds that sweep through desert areas. Hot, dry, muscular, and relentless, these winds are part of the landscapes that they scour on a regular basis.
The local wind doesn’t have an exotic name--it’s mostly just called wind, but sometimes prosaically referred to as termination wind. People come to this isolated city in the high desert to live
and work and then the wind comes unexpected. They’re prepared for the summer heat, but the wind takes them by surprise. The constant distress that the wind brings results in them terminating their stay
and leaving. It turns out that in this desert the brutal summer heat is not the hardest to bear: it’s the wind.
The discomfort is most acute outdoors. Working or walking is difficult--fighting to
maintain your balance or hanging onto things as the winds tries to wrest them from you and blow them away. Coming from outside to inside you have to pay attention so as not to have your car or house door
slammed on you. But the most irritating physical discomforts are the small ones. The sand stinging your legs and sandpapering your eyes, the clogged nose, dry throat and gritty taste in your mouth, and
worst of all is the chest tightness where your lungs feel like they’re full of dust.
The mental stress starts with having to batten down everything that might blow away and having to pay close attention to otherwise rote activities.
Then there’s the worry--will the roof survive? Was that popping sound my shingles being pulled up and blown down the street?
The haze over the valley reminds you of the polluted LA basin that most of the time seems so far away. Finally, there’s the sound. Outdoors and indoors: the constant noise rising to a freight train roar and then falling back to a moan. No wonder people get angry and frustrated. Worst is the feeling of helplessness, there’s nothing to do but wait. A day or two is tolerable, but when the wind blows throughout the entire spring it goes from merely irritating to almost intolerable. Like standing in one place; which doesn’t seem to be a big deal, but when forced to do it for hours becomes an excruciatingly painful method of torture. Right now I’m cranky, jittery, uneasy, and can no longer think clearly or focus.
The winds come as low pressure late winter and spring storms blow through from the west. The winds come and go blowing at 20-40 mph with gusts twice that. Hour after hour. Day after day. Almost
like a yearly Biblical flood the average spring will have strong winds blowing for 40 days and 40 nights.
Now it’s almost June and the wind is howling again with gusts to 40 mph. How much longer
is this going to continue? How much longer can I take it? I’m as cranky as my wife when she’s having a hot flash. My kids avoid me. My nails are bitten down to the quick. My carefully tended garden is in
shambles. The leaves on my fig trees, grapes vines and rose bushes are shredded, looking like they’ve been attacked by an army of caterpillars. Branches are broken off my olive trees and any plant with
the temerity to raise its leaves above the ground has been flattened.
Every wind storm ends, but the next wind is only a few days away. This is the pattern repeated every spring. TS Eliot observed
that “April is the cruelest month.” Here in this desert, spring is the cruelest season. The wind grinds you down. Each spring even those of us who don’t believe in God pray “please, please bring on the
infernal heat,” for once summer arrives the wind will finally abate.
Andrew Kilikauskas of Ridgecrest, CA, is a member of the Ridge Writers literary group.
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