Yesterday saw our first big rains after many months of dry and brought an end to our languid summer. I am always amused to hear people say that those if us living without blizzards and snow "don't have seasons". What they don't know, is that we have very clear seasons and they are all about water. Our summers don't bring rain. Where I live we have months of intense dry, followed by heavy and equally intense rains.
There is something amazing about rain when ones air has been dry for as long as ours has been. The air is sweet with moisture, dust clouds settle and the grass turns a shade greener almost instantaneously. Layers of dust gets washed off of everything, even stones on the trails reveal the greens and deep reds no longer covered by the orange of our dust. Once the rain gets going, it can rain for days and weeks without end. Basements flood, rivers threaten to burst their banks and mountain bikers ride down my street a uniform mud-brown from head to spoke. Reservoirs fill and overflow to the sea and the snow-pack in the Sierra Mountains rises, as rain for us means snow up there. Rain ensures our survival come summer and there is something deeply ingrained in us to respond to it's arrival with joy, so we do.
Yesterday evening, I ran outside with my iphone to try and record something of the falling rain's sweetness. Rain drops nestled in Rose petals on the pathway and Anemones glowed in the increasing darkness, small droplets weighing down their petals.
Fall is here and with is has come the rain, at last.
There is something amazing about rain when ones air has been dry for as long as ours has been. The air is sweet with moisture, dust clouds settle and the grass turns a shade greener almost instantaneously. Layers of dust gets washed off of everything, even stones on the trails reveal the greens and deep reds no longer covered by the orange of our dust. Once the rain gets going, it can rain for days and weeks without end. Basements flood, rivers threaten to burst their banks and mountain bikers ride down my street a uniform mud-brown from head to spoke. Reservoirs fill and overflow to the sea and the snow-pack in the Sierra Mountains rises, as rain for us means snow up there. Rain ensures our survival come summer and there is something deeply ingrained in us to respond to it's arrival with joy, so we do.
Yesterday evening, I ran outside with my iphone to try and record something of the falling rain's sweetness. Rain drops nestled in Rose petals on the pathway and Anemones glowed in the increasing darkness, small droplets weighing down their petals.
Fall is here and with is has come the rain, at last.
