Crazy-Making Weather

I live in the Pacific Northwest, so I get rain. I understand that spring is rainy, and sometimes windy, and sometimes a little stormy. But the last two weeks have been ridiculous. All day long, we alternate schizophrenically between sun and rain, hail, sleet, driving crazy winds (the kind with tree branches flying off and going tumbling through the air, not like gentle spring breezes), and pouring drenching ridiculous rain. You can't plan to do anything outside even a few minutes ahead of time, you can look outside and it's sunny and by the time you've grabbed your running shoes there's so much water pouring out of the sky it's like a bathtub got turned on your head.

It's driving. me. crazy.

Literally, I feel like a maddened beehive got turned loose inside my head, it's making me nuts. Can't get outside. Can't garden. Can't bike or run. I can take running in the rain, trust me I do it about 5 months out of the year. But running in a downpour with tree branches hailing down on your head and thunder cracking around? No thanks.

Luckily, we got a small break in the weather for the Ride of Silence on Wednesday, although not surprisingly the turnout was very low (gee, you think the hail, sleet, pouring rain and driving winds had anything to do with that?). That's the saddest I've been in a long time, so maybe that has contributed to my mood. As a mom, hearing a parent speak about losing their child to a collision with a car? That's almost unbearable. And yet, my kids ride bikes. How can I not have my kids ride bikes? How can I not ride a bike? Even knowing what's out there, the possible death that awaits with every driver who is distracted or in too much of a hurry? Should I just have my kids turn into these sofa slugs who get driven everywhere then? Like the blobby kids who pour out of the minivans at school drop-off lines or even at soccer games?

But what about the 10 year old killed at a crosswalk that the Ride of Silence arrived at on Wednesday. The teenager who hit him was going 65 miles per hour, and pulled around a car that had stopped for the young boy walking his bike across the street. He pushed the boy's bike 211 feet before finally skidding to a stop. Thinking of these things makes my head hurt. It makes my heart hurt. I have a 10 year old, no mother should have to lose a child like that, to someone else's impatience in their automobile. Maybe these are some of the bees in my head. Maybe it's not all just the weather.

Still, I can't wait for the weather to clear so I can... get out on my bike? What does that say about my brain then. Hmmmm....